Lazyness of CA team with charlemagne

[Apio Claudio]

Big problem with most of dlc:

- they brought reskined units to the game

- age of charlemagne brings very few units, city models are the same from atilla so copy paste ( awesome job Derren, and as he said " well for that it would cost another 10 euros", the truth is they are just lazy, they delivered a bad game with Rome 2 a bad game with atilla, only reason ppl will play this game later on is due to the amazing modders and modding teams that are out there)

- army composition is horrible. Apparently there were very few units in that time. Although i know that we cannot talk about a professional army in the Western europe the armies are a joke, variety = 0, once more CA rpoved that they are just interested in farming money not delivering proper content.

- the alani faction, well they doing actually a proper job there is something ppl would want at release not almost a year after

-releasing the white huns and those latest civs in atilla well was a good addition to try to balance the game but still it seems to dull

- Derren if you read this please note you can't say stuff like "it would cost you more", you are entitled to say that when you deliver a good game, not when you deliver garbadge like this. Game has cool graphics, some cool features but compared to Rome 1 and barbarian invasion the new features are very less. The games took a huge step bacwards when compared to shogun and Total war.

- the info that has been released about warhammer i bet the game will be crap even thought it has some cool features like the hero unit, levelling your hero and so on. you want a decent team go talk with Witcher's team, those were able to deliver 3 solid games, amazing free dlc ( oh thank you for the crap you gave ppl, was really awesome). Right now Total war is a shadow of its past glory.


There will be some that agree other who don't, feel free. Maybe if ppl stoped buying their games and asked for proper content they would not give the continuous crap they are giving.

[PikeStance]

There is very little difference between the start date of ATW and AoC, so I am not sure how much of a difference you were expecting.
I am not personally into unit variation unless it is historical.

[spiderknight]

one thing i noticed was that there were roman rebels....probably should have been frankish rebels but oh well. I guess it shows a lack of polish but i suppose you cant get them all.

[Huberto]

AoC is not garbage. The scale of the map is good, the diplomacy is improved, campaign feels balanced and there's enough history to keep me going. I'm with those who don't need a bunch of different units to hold my interest. Tip of the hat to you-know-who-you-are at CA --job well done.

[Wolves In The Throne Room]

It has pluses and and minuses.


Pros:

The campaign map is amazing, without this the DLC would probably be getting pretty bad reviews, but there are a couple minor issues with that, such as there should be full snow effects in Urgell and the Pyrenees pass, but the size is what it should have been from the start.

The unit cards are amazing.

The story lines are good.

It is a lot more optimized graphically.

Ancillaries are good, but some of the better ones should occur more frequently.

For people like me who prefer the post Rome eras, it is a lot of fun to play.

Cons:

Limited roster. Cost another 10 for a proper one they said? Kiss my ass CA, you owe us $40 worth of content for charging full price for what should have been a $20 DLC (Attila). That you only charged $10 doesn't get you customer relations trophies.

Major factions which are destroyed will not rise and you can't liberate them, even with Dresden's all in one diplomacy mod. 200th turn in and Asturias has been gone since turn 15, but Frisia has risen 5 times. Papal States have been gone 40 turns and won't rise. Boy that sure is immersive and fun.

I've seen a random trade stopping bug and another player has had the pope ancillary disappear.
siege AI is still retarded.

[The Despondent Mind]

All battle AI can still be retarded. CAI will STILL chase you to the end of the WORLD, I had papal agents arrive in Pomerania and Bretons invading Denmark, for crying out loud....

No Norway, No Sweden ( I mean the part of the map not the literal factions), For some reasons Byzantines are not a playable faction , Picts are not playable, shallow reskined roster and even worse, the same settlements etc etc.

Than CA comes and says doing anything more would make it cost more, and than moders come and do 10x times content for free. Seriously does CA operate on some outdated business practice or something, I see frequently DLCs that cost the same but with more content.

[Imperator Artorius]

My biggest problem with AoC right now is that it isn't standalone and requires Attila to play. Im about 100 turns into my first campaign as the man himself and its the most fun Ive had in a TW campaign since FotS. Sure the rosters are small, but what could they have added that wouldnt be just for the sake of it? I feel like the units are well balanced (cav feels a little slow however) and each unit type has its own tactical role, and the way the unit tiers work very much reminds me of Shogun 2, where you have the choice between lower quality but cheaper levy units and higher quality but much more expensive professional units.

As for the mechanics, it feels like CA has taken out most of the stuff I found annoying about the vanilla game i.e. Comically OP Huns, super aggressive kamikaze AI, needlessly complicated balancing when it comes to buildings and added new stuff that, so far, I quite enjoy, mainly the story dilemnas and War Weariness (Not sure, but I think in my game Bohemia had just conquered Bavaria when the Avars attacked, they seemed to lose several battles and 3 of their cities were lost to rebellion, allowing me to walk in).

Other than it not being a standalone, my big complaint is the lack of new music and some offputting names for units i.e. Big axes or Large Shields, that honestly feel a lot like placeholder names.

[♘Top Hat Zebra]

Oh gods. "Big axes" made me literally quit the campaign.

I mean, I can put up with some laziness in unit names. "Theign Spears" sure, okay, fine, I'll accept that. I don't need every word to be in the native, archaic language, or anything like that.

But, "Big axes"? Really? Someone legitimately looked at that unit name, decided, "Yes, this will do" and threw it in there.

[Apio Claudio]

AoC is not garbage. The scale of the map is good, the diplomacy is improved, campaign feels balanced and there's enough history to keep me going. I'm with those who don't need a bunch of different units to hold my interest. Tip of the hat to you-know-who-you-are at CA --job well done.

So what you are saying is took them2 major games and 4 dlc's to make a decent dlc?


Limited roster. Cost another 10 for a proper one they said? Kiss my ass CA, you owe us $40 worth of content for charging full price for what should have been a $20 DLC (Attila). That you only charged $10 doesn't get you customer relations trophies.


Could not agree more. The games they delivered so far are really bad. The replayabilty is not that much interesting since a few trns you already know how the rest of your campaign is going to be, a dull and boring grind of cities. The enemy ai will only attack you in the begining


All battle AI can still be retarded. CAI will STILL chase you to the end of the WORLD, I had papal agents arrive in Pomerania and Bretons invading Denmark, for crying out loud...


I think the the cherry on top of the cake was when units would just ran through your entire army to capture the damn flags in Rome 2. First time that happened i just laugh so hard due to the imbecility i was experiencing


No Norway, No Sweden ( I mean the part of the map not the literal factions), For some reasons Byzantines are not a playable faction , Picts are not playable, shallow reskined roster and even worse, the same settlements etc etc.

They should have added byzantine empire, as you said, and north Africa. Since this expansion is somehow related to the morrish invasion would make sense that north africa was there. Apparently the byzantine empire was also cut out "due to reasons"

[Havarel]

Limited roster. Cost another 10 for a proper one they said? Kiss my ass CA, you owe us $40 worth of content for charging full price for what should have been a $20 DLC (Attila). That you only charged $10 doesn't get you customer relations trophies.

Seriously? Attila is well worth what they charged for it. I spent £22 on the game and I've had over 200 hours of entertainment. It's a completely new game compared to Rome 2 and very different. Compare that to literally anything else you could spend £22 or $40 on and it's a bargain.

The new DLC likewise is a bargain. A new map, completely redone artwork, new scenarios etc for £10? Between a dozen and a hundred hours of entertainment? For £10. And you get it cheaper at $10! Sure the new rosters are a bit bland, but considering the nature of the militaries at that point in history it's unlikely they would have thousands of different units. The fun from this campaign comes from the unique empires, positions and scenarios.

[shnukshnuk]

why the do you buy these games then if all you people do is ing complain? just ing leave. im sick of this dirty ass community doing nothing but complain about everything DLC games whatever it may be you all hate on them. i bet if total war disappeared for good you would all cry because you will never get your fix

[Totalheadache]

why the do you buy these games then if all you people do is ing complain? just ing leave. im sick of this dirty ass community doing nothing but complain about everything DLC games whatever it may be you all hate on them. i bet if total war disappeared for good you would all cry because you will never get your fix

So because if it went we wouldnt have total wars and that would somehow make our lives meaningless? Not all of us have a childs mentality...

If the series has to die because of a companies decisions/design etc. So be it. It's called progress...

But some of us here hope CA does read some of the complaints and ideas and uses them and also that they persevere to make better games and spend some money on a new engine!

[Hellenikon]

You don´t like the dlc, we got it. You then go point by point and dismiss everything that you thought decent (like white huns "too late!").

Maybe CA would read your feedback if you toned down the name-calling, which is really annoying and unnecessary. You say you want CA to improve but from your original post your sound like you want them to disband and fire everyone because somehow they offended you.

[Humble Warrior]

All battle AI can still be retarded. CAI will STILL chase you to the end of the WORLD, I had papal agents arrive in Pomerania and Bretons invading Denmark, for crying out loud....

Well that`s no good. Thanks for the report...

[Tyso3]

Oh gods. "Big axes" made me literally quit the campaign.

I mean, I can put up with some laziness in unit names. "Theign Spears" sure, okay, fine, I'll accept that. I don't need every word to be in the native, archaic language, or anything like that.

But, "Big axes"? Really? Someone legitimately looked at that unit name, decided, "Yes, this will do" and threw it in there.

Actually i heard there were several meetings and seminars to sort out that exact issue. 40% of the AOC budget was spent to do testing groups to see the reaction of this and other names including 'Large Axes', 'Smaller than Very large Axes' and 'Flippity Floppity floo'.

In the end, CA settled on 'Super badass big guys with awesome axey companions named sid and fred' which in its shortend form is 'Big axes'.


So considering that 350 people died in the making of the name of that unit, i would expect you would show some respect to the CA developers, and honour the memory of the people and kittens killed to bring you Age of Charlemagne.

[Heartfire]

I think people will make of this DLC what they want. If you really liked Attila, then you will like this DLC. It emphasizes infantry more, and cavalry less, so be ready for that. Missile units are more powerful than before, too - which is something I enjoy.

But it is still built off of Attila. At some point, diplomacy becomes unnecessary. Even when it isn't necessary, diplomacy is not going to be the best part of this game.

AoC is $15, and well worth it, I think. The units still look alike, yea, but honestly, you have to expect that at some point. When was the last time that was different? Reskinned units are a part of TW since Medieval 2. Napoleon has some good variation, but it still uses reskins. And there is a point where you need to come to peace with that.

Some people will like the DLC, some won't. I wholeheartedly believe it is good to complain about the aspects of the game you don't like. But lets not all become the next Humble Warrior and just run around Total War Center complaining about everything, remarking how everything is bad, and CA/Steam is the worst.

[daelin4]

- they brought reskined units to the game

- age of charlemagne brings very few units, city models are the same from atilla so copy paste ( awesome job Derren, and as he said " well for that it would cost another 10 euros", the truth is they are just lazy, they delivered a bad game with Rome 2 a bad game with atilla, only reason ppl will play this game later on is due to the amazing modders and modding teams that are out there)

- army composition is horrible. Apparently there were very few units in that time. Although i know that we cannot talk about a professional army in the Western europe the armies are a joke, variety = 0, once more CA rpoved that they are just interested in farming money not delivering proper content.

To be fair, it's either reskinned units or even less variety...in a period where there is honestly not much about unit variety to speak of. They can of course just make up stuff but then they'll get the historical blokes breathing down their necks.

[Heartfire]

You are definitely right daelin4, but I really wish they had more city models. Even though I understand it is not a standalone, a few extra city models would have gone a lot way for me. it seems like these days I fight more city battles than field battles.

[Påsan]

Oh gods. "Big axes" made me literally quit the campaign.

I mean, I can put up with some laziness in unit names. "Theign Spears" sure, okay, fine, I'll accept that. I don't need every word to be in the native, archaic language, or anything like that.

But, "Big axes"? Really? Someone legitimately looked at that unit name, decided, "Yes, this will do" and threw it in there.

Actually In my language, Norwegian, we dont call the 2 handed axes "Daneaxes" .. we call them either broadaxe or big axe.


Not saying the names in Attila are not unimaginative, they are. But that particular one gets pass from me.

[Darios]

Not quite sure what some of you guys were expecting in terms of unit diversity. The period between the fall of Rome and 900 was an extremely "dull" period in terms of military diversity in Western Europe. The notion of professional armies disappeared and the Germanic model became the basis of armament during the time with a slow evolution towards feudalism. So....indeed you're not going to see much more than basic swordsmen/spearmen in a shield wall along with some type of noble heavy cavalryman (hints of the early knight.) You're not supposed to see this lack of diversity as a bad thing but rather come to better appreciate each unit for what it is. In Rome 2/Attila there's a mad rush to quickly upgrade your units so you can get the best stuff but Charlemagne doesn't seem to work like that. There are fewer units, but they each have a respective role on the battlefield.

I didn't buy AoC and I am sure that CA left a lot of weird holes in it, but cut them some slack. The last three DLC cycles (Last Roman/Empires of Sand/Charlemagne) have been excellent and CA has been increasingly showing that they still care about giving us a good product. Another thing to consider, modders do this stuff much better sure, but a lot of them also do it as a hobby from the comfort of their homes. For CA this is a job and they have many things to consider before they can down and create 300+ new units.