CA please fix the visiors of the Old Guard

[Sir Nicholas Altman]

New year is here. Maybe CA will do something different this time!

[Prince of Essling]

New year is here. Maybe CA will do something different this time!

You've probably more chance of flying to the moon than CA doing this!

[Sir Nicholas Altman]

You've probably more chance of flying to the moon than CA doing this!

LOL. That is funny! But you never know.

[YoungGrognard]

Regarding the bearskin: it seems in CA's version they have the front plate of the grenadiers, that's fine. And they have the orange cord. In one of those illustrations, one of the Old Guard figures has an orange cord. I am referring to the illustrations that were attached by Prince of Essling in the first page of posts.

So, it looks like there was some variation in the uniforms, perhaps between various sub-units. It would seem that CA chose one variation arbitriraly.

Are we really sure that the one that CA chose is 'wrong'? Most of the illustrations have the white cord, but not all of them.

I'm not convinced yet that CA have got it 'wrong'. Because there were many small variations in the Old Guard uniform, and CA just chose one variation, from what I can tell so far.

[YoungGrognard]

While nice figures the bearskin cords are totally the wrong colour! See attached Rousselot plates.

In the 2nd and 3rd plates there are Old Guardsmen with the orange cord (or yellow/red intertwined perhaps).

That's the same as CA used! Guys, maybe CA didn't make a mistake after all. It seems that the orange cord was also used although white may have been more common.

[Don Porfirio Díaz]

While I understand that many players don't care about this trivial detail, it's stupid to tell Altman to stop asking CA for a fix. Why is this? If we keep accepting every minor error in the game, CA will believe they can release the game with errors and we'll just accept it. They'll believe they can release another E:TW and we'll just say "Oh, it's just trivial stuff. I won't say anything because CA can't be bothered now because they're working on more important things." So yeah, I encourage Altman. We must stop accepting every error that's given to us, start to demand that those errors are fixed.

[Keiichi]

@YoungGrognard
Earlier in this thread, it's noted that CA has outright admitted to accidentally using the bearskin of the Old Guard Artillery.

[Didz]

Actually there was quite a history behind the cock-up over the old guard uniforms.

Members of this community were pointing out the errors in these uniforms even before the game was released as the pre-production screenshots clearly showed that the uniforms were wrong. However, we were constantly assured that these models were just placeholders and that the uniforms would be correct by the time the game was published.

Then it appears that at the last minute a failure occurred in the communication between the researcher and the graphic's department which resulted in the old guard grenadiers being given the bearskin of the old guard artillery.

There was an open apology on this forum for the mistake,which had occurred despite all the assurances that everything would be all right on the night. What remains a mystery is why it hasn't been corrected in one of the subsequent packages.

In the 2nd and 3rd plates there are Old Guardsmen with the orange cord (or yellow/red intertwined perhaps). That's the same as CA used! Guys, maybe CA didn't make a mistake after all. It seems that the orange cord was also used although white may have been more common.

No, there is no confusion here. The uniforms used by CA are wrong. The excuses you cite from the plates provided by PofE are easily explained away.

The guardsman in the 2nd plate with what you refer to as orange cords is in fact an NCO, who wore red and yellow intertwined cords and different coloured epaulettes to the ordinary guardsmen.

The guardsman in the 3rd plate is also an NCO hence the yellow and red cords, but is also a member of the Old Guard Chasseurs rather than a Grenadier. Hence the red over green plume and the lack of the brass grenadier plate on the front of the headress.

Ironically, one of the excuses given by CA when the errors in shako cords were first reported to them was that the placeholders they were using were all NCO models. Which did appear to be true looking at the pictures of the time, but whilst the uniforms were subsequently changed they were still wrong upon release.

[Achilla]

While I understand that many players don't care about this trivial detail, it's stupid to tell Altman to stop asking CA for a fix. Why is this? If we keep accepting every minor error in the game, CA will believe they can release the game with errors and we'll just accept it. They'll believe they can release another E:TW and we'll just say "Oh, it's just trivial stuff. I won't say anything because CA can't be bothered now because they're working on more important things." So yeah, I encourage Altman. We must stop accepting every error that's given to us, start to demand that those errors are fixed.

They kept releasing games with gameplay bugs and errors of factual/historic value since the birth of Total War series, about 10 years ago. They kept releasing them because we kept buying them, because we believed that the games they release are good enough even with all of their faults. Or, maybe we kept buying their games because there were no other games like Total War?

In one way or another, until there is serious competition in the game industry CA will do as they please and we will keep buying their games for what they are and not what they could(should) be. There are dozens of far more important issues with the Napoleon yet to be dealt with, but they don't get half the publicity of some ludicrous visor from Old Guard.

As far as historical accuracy goes, there are many other problems with uniforms and Old Guard is just one of them. How about you join your incentive with other, similar threads? How about you compile all the inaccuracies from the game in one, single thread, after thorough, documented research, and then send CA link to that thread? Don't you think they will make use of it as a reference for future Napoleonic era TW games?

Even if they won't fix this game for any reason, that doesn't mean what you do is useless! What's useless is creating 999 separate threads, each about a single, tiny issue, and ing about it to no end, like it was the most important flaw of the game! That is wrong!

[Didz]

@Achilla

I think what you say is perfectly true. Certainly, I have kept buying TW games simply because there is no other publisher producing anything better, and also, in the vain hope that my continued support and customer loyalty would be rewarded by an real improvement on product quality over time.

ETW was therefore quite a rude awakening for me, and I suspect many other loyal fans who have routinely pre-ordered TW games in the faithful hope that things would get better and that CA are doing their best and deserve our support were similarly dissappointed.

Even now I am reluctant to join the those who are calling for a complete ban on future TW game purchases, because despite the poor quality of ETW and NTW I still have hopes that CA might go back and review their mistakes and produce a game worth buying. The only real change I have made in my purchasing strategy since ETW is to avoid being persuaded into parting with any money until I have seen what has been produced and instead hold onto my money until I know the game with worth buying, or until the price drops low enough to make the game worth the price.

As far as your point about the general lack of historical accuracy and the need for a consolidated list of flaws, I have to say that as far as I'm concerned that approach was done to death over a year ago, and there are numerous summary threads on this forum itemising the problems. I even produced a summary myself and emailed to CA. My conclusion is that if CA were interested in putting ETW and NTW right, then they have had more than enough opportunity and ample guiidance and offers of support from the TW community. Simply encompassing one of the better mods into the main game would be a substantial improvement. The reality is that nothing has been done, and I get the impression that anyone who was interested has long since walked away in disgust.

[YoungGrognard]

As far as the Old Guard uniform goes, OK I'm now convinced that it's not quite right.

But it's close. Unlike some of the stuff they've done, like in Rome Total War where they had all sorts of fantasy units.

And how Rome Total War had nothing to do with the history of the Roman Republic at all.

For example Brutii and Scipii as factions. What the is that. That is ing absurd to anybody who knows anything about the Roman Republic.

For starters the plural for Brutus is Bruti. And the plural for Scipio is Scipiones. And they were not "factions". They aren't even Roman families. Brutus is a cognomen, like a Roman nickname appended to the end of a Roman name. There was no Brutus family and there was no Scipio family. They were nicknames that some notable Romans had, amongst many. Almost everybody had a cognomen and many noble Romans had many and sometimes they had more cognomen appended to their names such as Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (Pompey the Great) a name which Gnaeus Pompeius awarded to himself at a young age before he even had a military command. And Quintus Caecilius Metellus Numidicus for example, given the name Numidicus for victories against Numidia although he was a mediocre general compared to Gaius Marius (who had no cognomen), his colleague in the Numidian campaign and his arch-nemisis. Marcus Junius Brutus (Brutus meaning brute) was one of Caesar's assassins (there was a mob of over 20 senators who murdered him very cowardly). Brutus wasn't a notable military man and from memory he was a filthy-rich young aristocrat and a coward with acne and low self-esteem who was mortally afraid of his mother (who used to do the nasty with Caesar quite a lot). Scipio Africanus was the conqueror of Carthage and Roman Africa province hence the name Africanus but there was no "Scipii" faction. It's not even a word.

I just can't get over Rome Total War. For the love of Jupiter: Scipii and Brutii aren't even valid words or names. It's madness. Nobody at CA knew a damn thing about Rome. PATHETIC. They should be humiliated and they should have had their historical wargaming license revoked then and there.

Rome Total War was beyond a joke. ETW and NTW are masterpieces of historical accuracy compared to Rome Total War. Yet ETW and NTW get thrown under the bus by fans but remember RTW with rose-tinted glasses, not realising what a ING abomination in the eyes of the gods of historical wargames Rome Total War is.

That said I still like Rome TW and I still play it sometimes. So I'm in your boat there. CA and us hardcore wargamer fans...... it's a love-hate relationship if ever there was one!!

Cheers.

[YoungGrognard]

Oh... and by the way, let's not forget how they mixed Ancient Egypt complete with war chariots - with the Roman Republic.

For the love of Jupiter. Egypt was hellenised significantly at that time, ruled by the Ptolemies, a Macedonian dynasty and they had a hellenised style of military. Not ancient egyptian armies!

Historical accuracy rating: 0 % . F. YOU ING FAIL, CA!!!!! GO AND PUT THE DUNCE'S HAT ON AND SIT IN THE CORNER YOU LOSERS. It's offensive, and an insult to their fans.

So that's Rome. I repeat: by comparison, NTW is a masterpiece of realism.

[daniu]

F. YOU ING FAIL, CA!!!!! GO AND PUT THE DUNCE'S HAT ON AND SIT IN THE CORNER YOU LOSERS. It's offensive, and an insult to their fans.

Good thing you're less offensive and insulting

[YoungGrognard]

Good thing you're less offensive and insulting

Yeah... I know... but it's an entirely different sort of offensiveness. And they richly deserved it for their Rome Total War historical research! I make no apology for that. It's a disgrace. I feel that they've done better and atoned for it in some ways, successively with M2TW, ETW and now with NTW.

Edit:

I'm just saying, in the scheme of things, Old-Guard-wrong-shako-colour-gate is one of the smaller errors that our beloved CA have comitted. God bless their souls.

Also I will add that I've personally paid cash to buy Shogun, Medieval, Rome, Medieval 2, ETW and NTW, all as soon as they were released and that I've never attempted to pirate the games although I used to do that when I was poor, but not with TW games, and I have put my money where my mouth is and paid my share to have these games developed.

It's somewhat of an excessive defence of my comments... but I think I've earned the right to give CA a verbal lashing for their epic monumental screw up of Roman history in one of their games. And what's more, the game which is often cited as their best game!!!!

As Martin Luther King Jr said once, famously.... "Sometimes...... I feel DISCOURAGED!!!!"

[daniu]

they richly deserved it for their Rome Total War historical research!
[...]I've personally paid cash to buy Shogun, Medieval, Rome, Medieval 2, ETW and NTW, all as soon as they were released

Well, no wonder you're angry... haunted by games posing an insult to you, and which you're still forced to get.

[Didz]

@Young Gronard

Your quite right in what you say about RTW, and its equally true of STW and MTW. I'm actually playing RTW at the moment and its far more challenging and fun to play that NTW, yet no more historically accurate. I think the truth is that not as many of the TW fans were interested in the history behind the early TW games, and so whilst their were some complaints about the fantasy units and the lack of historical accuracy it never really reached the critical level that it did with ETW and NTW.

I just think that people care more about the accuracy of ETW and NTW because they are such popular periods of history. I also suspect that what added fuel to the whole situation was that fact that ETW was initially released in an unplayable state so everyone was pretty annoyed anyway, and then there was the annoyance of having to cope with steam for the first time for a lot of fans.

[Sir Nicholas Altman]

@Young Gronard

Your quite right in what you say about RTW, and its equally true of STW and MTW. I'm actually playing RTW at the moment and its far more challenging and fun to play that NTW, yet no more historically accurate. I think the truth is that not as many of the TW fans were interested in the history behind the early TW games, and so whilst their were some complaints about the fantasy units and the lack of historical accuracy it never really reached the critical level that it did with ETW and NTW.

I just think that people care more about the accuracy of ETW and NTW because they are such popular periods of history. I also suspect that what added fuel to the whole situation was that fact that ETW was initially released in an unplayable state so everyone was pretty annoyed anyway, and then there was the annoyance of having to cope with steam for the first time for a lot of fans.

I must agree here with you. When I played ETW I was shocked how bad it was. Buggy as hell and the unit neglect was just amazing. Only since 1.3 and bunch of DLC the game became attractive.

[ElementUK]

Anyone zooming in close enough to see the darn visors in-game and has the audacity to whinge about it, has an illness imo.

[Didz]

Then there must be a lot of sick people playing this game, check out the pictures and video thread.

[Sir Nicholas Altman]

Now NTW main menu is brick red. It started as blue. I guess red was for Peninsula as a kind of adverb. So my guess there will be a patch to convert it to blue again (same happened in ETW and the Warpath). In that patch they gonna fix the visiors. I am sure. I love you CA.