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Thread: Age of Charlemagne - Review and Impressions.

  1. #1

    Default Age of Charlemagne - Review and Impressions.

    First off it's been a while since I've posted here, Rome II kinda pushed me away from being a Total War fan boy. However I do recall seeing a few reviews here when Rome II and CiG came out that really helped members of the community out and I felt now that I do reviews I'd give Age of Charlemagne a go and post the review here. If the rules have changed please don't crucify me! The rules haven't changed as far as I could see. So without further delay Why do I Bother with Age of Charlemagne? If you've got any questions feel free to ask away.

    What do I think of this DLC. I've got mixed feelings. There's only so much you can do when working with a game that feels like a standalone expansion. It falls victim to many of the same pitfalls that Attila and Rome II Emperor's Edition has.The Battle AI is still dumb, Campaign AI is still as ineffective a sever the building options are still limited and the generals feel more like 2d stereotypes rather than characters but these issues can hardly be solved with a DLC can they? ON the other hand the game isleaking with polish, beautiful assets and a beautiful world map leads to some stunning battles at least till the lines join and the inner character of the game is revealed. So the question is; Why do I bother with Total War Attila Age of Charlemagne?


    Firstly I want to clarify that whileI'm a long term fan of the series, having started with Shogun: Total War, I'm not a hardcore fan of the series. I play other games from avariety of genre's but I have spent many years (and almost failedsome exams) spending to much time playing Total War. Hopefully you'll understand that this criticism is coming from a place of love.


    So let's dive into the game. First up Age of Charlemagne is a DLC campaign which in the past has usually taken the core of the game given it a new map and wrote a half arsed but sometimes decent story to go with it. So how does Age of Charlemagne measure up? About as well as you could expect - that isto say, it follows the mould. The units are primarily improvedreskins of older units, nothing to fancy nothing special. It's rather disappointing if not unexpected, for those who felt like this DLC could of been a quasi Medieval III to sate your thirst keep looking.This is Attila with a different map, which is disappointing. True the early modern period was limited in information but their is barely any theme here, we have the generic "Levy Spearmen" and"Armoured Spearmen" then finally "Royal Spearmen"the units just feel bland and devoid of national flavour with the expectation of perhaps the Vikings and Moors. The armies I built as Charlemagne were of identical composition as the armies I built as the Mercians. The Armies visually differed of course, the Creative Assembly's art team as usual has done an exquisite job in making the units look beautiful aesthetically, the new unit cards are fantastic and imitate quite nicely the Bayeux Tapestry. All this graphical finesse however feels wasted by the fact that the units are so damn generic Levy Spearmen may well be historically accurate but theme isvital in all creative works. Having Frankish Spearmen be called Frankish Spearmen actually helps quite a lot and gives the illusion of diversity – even if the stats are the same. Here is a situation and tell me what sounds better.

    1. The enemies Levy Spearmen are charging our Levy Spearmen on our right flank damn those Levy Spearmen!


    2. The enemies Lombard Spear Warriorsare charging our Frankish Spearwall on our right flank, damn those Lombard dogs!


    The games use of the generic hurts itand damages it's theme, which is a shame considering the diversity in the units themselves, the Mercian Levy Spearmen look different to the Frankish ones but when they 're the size of ants that doesn't matter as much as the unit card name. It's something the Creative Assembly should think about when creating future historical Total War games –hopefully they'll go all out on theme for the upcoming Total War:Warhammer.

    So thematically the DLC fails, which is a shame considering Attila was dripping with theme - the end of the world.You may think that this means other areas were improved then? Sadlyno, the CAI still targets you, badly. It plays to defeat you, not tobuild an empire of its own; and it shows. The AI will still not take advantage of other states weakness' preferring to watch the playerlike a hawk. It leads to a much more challenging campaign at thestart mind you – but takes a lot out of the strategy and immersion that the game should be emphasising. It's a shame that the gamerelies on this artificial difficulty. Especially when Shogun 2 overcame many of these issues. During the Age of Charlemagne I never saw a small empire grow – in fact besides from maybe the occasional province I never saw any empires but my own grow – certainly not to the extent that they did in Shogun 2 anyway. The AI still prefers to raid you constantly rather than settling down – infact over the 2 campaigns I played during my time with Age of Charlemagne I only saw them take a territory of me one time, every other time they raided and pulled back weakening their army until my Palace Guard came andwiped them of the face of the Earth after 7 turns. The CAI has more issues than just that – between failing to resolve famines and building a blacksmith in every town and city it controlled the AI was damn right idiotic and couldn't pose a challenge once my Empire became stable. Sadly I think Shogun II will remain the height of Campaign AI for Total War for some time to come and even that game had it's issues.

    Now the battle AI is just as idiotic, itclumps multiple units up to charge one of yours which would befine... if it outnumbered you which it rarely does. This simply leads to one of your units taking heavy casualties while your other unit get around the flank of the mismanaged mess and hits it hard. Causingit to run. Sadly when running most units rally on their first round after about 15-30m of running – even if a n enemy unit is hot on their heels. This is ok when you have a strong battle line to buy them time to rally up but most of the time it just leads to them being charged by the perusing unit and routed from being charged in the rear. Gee thanks but I'd rather them just keep running. Now the battles aren't the terrible mess they were in Total War: Rome II but the aforementioned lack of unit diversity takes it's toll. There's only so many times you can see the generic levy spearmen attack generic levy spearmen with the AI using the same boring and ineffective strategy. The game would benefit from drop in battles massively. The games combat works but it's still lacking in a strategical depth. You can easily win battle after battle just by training the best troops and charging them headlong into the enemy.Co-op mitigates this considerably, there's no need to interact with the lacklustre BAI if you're lucky enough to have a reliable Co-Oppartner. The game feels so much better when you're fighting a player– the battles go from a disorganised charge of rabble to a beautiful symphony of plays and counter plays each player desperately trying to gain the advantage. Pre-organised online battles howeverare a total cop out, the lack of variety means that you're better off just using the vanilla game.

    The new features
    are pretty underwhelming and like most things just affect public order and loyalty of your commanders. The CAI being the CAI ignores this because of course it does, hell as far as I can tell it doesn't get affected by war exhaustion - I killed 6 full stacks every turn in a row during my Mercian campaign and Charlemagne was still happy to fight me to the death. I guess he really wanted to die... As I've said again and again moments like these pull you out of the experience and remind you that you are playing a game.


    So Co-Op is the DLC's greatest strength but is it fun because of the improved challenge or because you'resimply playing with a friend? I'd have to say it is better because ofthe challenge, it feels like you are playing a different game. You can play on normal difficulty and not feel like the battles are pushover. You can actually feel like you're building towards an end game goal; the destruction of the empire your friend worked so hard to build. So yes Co-op makes the game fun. But does it make the game worth $15 USD? I'd have to say no.


    The DLC is fun, but it needed more. It feels too much like Attila despite the fact it should feel like the dawn of the medieval age. Thematically the game should feel like are birth of the West it should feel like the rise of Charlemagne but instead feels like a mod. Arguably worse, most mods have much more thematic unit variety – even those mods which focus on historical accuracy manage to keep to a theme better. So Why do I bother with Total War: Attila: Age of Charlemagne? The answer is I'm don't. I can't honestly in good faith recommend it, there's simply much better alternatives. Save your money and wait for Total War: Warhammer and just search for some mods. There's some great ones available online at TWCenter and on Steam Workshop. Thanks for reading this I hope it helped make up your mind. Good gaming.

    For those of you interested I made a video it's not as well thought out and detailed as the typed review but it shows some game play - In case anyone here doesn't know how a Total War game plays .


    TL;DR: It's a glorified mod that's inferior to a mod. Wait for Total War: Warhammer - even if you don't like fantasy you'll like it better than this.

    If you got questions I'll answer them. I've got about 25 hours in the campaign as both Mercia (15 hours) and Franks (10ish hours). Could push through any more than that.

    Edit: Spacing messed up.
    Last edited by lolIsuck; December 19, 2015 at 07:51 AM. Reason: fixed youtube link

  2. #2

    Default Re: Age of Charlemagne - Review and Impressions.

    Interesting reason to not suggest a DLC... Guess shogun should of had "Mori samurai" vs the "Hatori samurai" and it would have made that game more immersive too. Fact is it is the dark ages and there was not all the variety of units represented in Rome 2 or even Attila. The Avars have a completely different playing style than the Franks and the Moops have a different playing style as the English. Just because the semantics of the units name is generic does not mean the units are less immersive imo... When Charlemagne looked at his armies he saw "levy spear men, armored spear men, ect.." sort of how I see them too. Sometimes these unit mods go nuts with these crazy specialized units like they actually existed in history when few actually did or had any significance at all.

    The Bai and Cai are what we would expect from any TW game. Yes I wish it was better but on VH/VH the ai does have some interesting tricks. However it is just an AI.
    Last edited by C.Maximus; December 18, 2015 at 05:31 PM.

  3. #3
    Humble Warrior's Avatar Vicarius Provinciae
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    Default Re: Age of Charlemagne - Review and Impressions.

    Thanks for the review. Strange, as I am reading some stark contrasts in opinion, especially on the CAI.

  4. #4

    Default Re: Age of Charlemagne - Review and Impressions.

    It'd have to say I'm perhaps expecting too much hoping that the AI will be as good as a human but to me it feels worse than Shogun 2's AI. That factored in to my opinion of the AI quite heavily, it is still leagues above the Rome II AI. Perhaps 25 hours isn't enough but during proper play (when I'm quietly deliberating my every move and not recording) I can easily outsmart it.

    @ Maximus Recently we've uncovered a wide range of information on the people of the Early Middle Ages. The clothing and armour that most of the people wore is actually widely available and documented. Also I make no claim that it has to be historically accurate, but thematically the game does fail on the backs of its units. However even if I was to agree with you that the unit diversity doesn't matter (which it does in my opinion) the truth is I'd still not recommend it. Also accepting what I should correct as lack lustre AI is not a good thing. If we accept that Creative Assembly AI is bad and is never going to get better, then what drive do they have to get better?

  5. #5

    Default Re: Age of Charlemagne - Review and Impressions.

    Thanks for the review appreciate ya taking the time Cadian Guardsman.

  6. #6
    Garensterz's Avatar Senator
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    Default Re: Age of Charlemagne - Review and Impressions.

    Am I the only one who can't see the video?



  7. #7
    Captain Arrrgh!'s Avatar I'z in yer grass
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    Default Re: Age of Charlemagne - Review and Impressions.

    An epic TLR that only five people bothered to read.

  8. #8

    Default Re: Age of Charlemagne - Review and Impressions.

    So far I've actually been enjoying it but I've only had it for one day and I find I often like TW games on release and soon find the lack of depth/immersion afterwards.

    In any case I can say that my original campagin as Romans (with a mod) was one that I eventually quit because nothing seemed to be happening. I decided to take a gamble and send my only army from Sicily to Spain and, expecting stiff resistance from Moorish hordes, was instead allowed to take settlement after settlement with no response from the AI. Not much of anything seemed to happen overall.

    I decided to start up a Danish campaign since actual playable factions are likely to have more engaging campaigns; the Franks have conquered Westphalia and Friesland and may soon come for me in Denmark, which I'm worried about as it's currently undefended with my Great Heathen Army rampaging through northern England. So far it's been pretty fun - there's not much unit diversity but then it's the Dark Ages, the glamour of Rome was replaced by levies for the most part so it's not surprising. I quite like the UI and while I don't feel any new features are amazing at least the doom-nuke of razing a settlement is no longer possible.


    Overall it's a good bit of fun, let's hope it stays that way.

  9. #9

    Default Re: Age of Charlemagne - Review and Impressions.

    Quote Originally Posted by Captain Arrrgh! View Post
    An epic TLR that only five people bothered to read.
    Well I hope this helped all the 5 people who could be bothered . At leasted there's the incoherent video for those who don't like reading, even if it's more of a ramble hahaha.

  10. #10
    Junaidi83 de Bodemloze's Avatar Dont Mess With Me
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    Default Re: Age of Charlemagne - Review and Impressions.

    Age of Charlamagne DLC was not realy so bad, sure its was not perfect , also have same glitch, buts with couple mods its solve the problem mostly.However if you asking will C.A adopt the mod style, i dont think they will, since its was their core, to create drama AI instead actual strategic AI like chess play.
    the CAI still targets you, badly. It plays to defeat you, not tobuild an empire of its own; and it shows. The AI will still not take advantage of other states weakness' preferring to watch the playerlike a hawk. It leads to a much more challenging campaign at thestart mind you – but takes a lot out of the strategy and immersion that the game should be emphasising. It's a shame that the gamerelies on this artificial difficulty. Especially when Shogun 2 overcame many of these issues. During the Age of Charlemagne I never saw a small empire grow – in fact besides from maybe the occasional province I never saw any empires but my own grow – certainly not to the extent that they did in Shogun 2 anyway.
    With some effort none of you said happens, you can read the rest info on here



    You can see Bavaria AI vs Charlemagne AI combat each other vying Europe, AI acted as smooth as it can, nobody sit idle, one reason Danes still not invade Britain because its army stuck on the sea (left rotting get eaten by war weariness effect) because Navy bug.

    And that was running on Anti Cheat version, even on legendary mode the AI dont have any bonus at all, stricly to 1, imagine it, without bonus, just pure AI logic and tuning.

    Both Attila and Rome 2 have much more competent Campaign AI then shogun 2 ever have in design and in complexity. What C.A deliver to us was raw diamond in the mud, its provide lots of room for player creativity to made some huge improvement toward the game itself.



    The problem with Age of Charlemagne DLC is quite complex, for example, they do have naval bug that made AI never wanted to invade your land from sea, as long either human or AI have navy unit guard its coast ,added with other unresolved issue and bad AI design, its resulted in mess game like you play now.

    However if this issue can be fix either using mod or official patch, its absolutely stunning for all other Total war game from Rome 2 to Attilla. For BAI i cant say much x-X
    Last edited by Junaidi83 de Bodemloze; December 20, 2015 at 02:55 AM.
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  11. #11
    Garensterz's Avatar Senator
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    Default Re: Age of Charlemagne - Review and Impressions.

    Over-assuming is a very dangerous act.



  12. #12
    Junaidi83 de Bodemloze's Avatar Dont Mess With Me
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    Default Re: Age of Charlemagne - Review and Impressions.

    Darth Vader creator from Darthmod said this "we all have a pen, a ink and a paper, the difference between you and me is , i willing to try to write it".

    Empire Total War is one example of fine disaster, and he prove to be otherwise, we already have enough rambling post and thread from shogun 2 to Attila not a single CA game release will going without scrath or broken feature. Its up to player in the end, what will he do with the broken game, will he try to sit and repair and share its work to the rest of community or he can sit and wrote the dissapointment review that has been wroten over and over by many people (do its actually help the community in the end, the answer still no, C.A is already learned handy ability named "Deaf ear and Blind Eyes, also chilly silent". If one want wrote review so badly try to wrote it on Total War official forum, in that place its should be read by actuall game developer itself, while writing in TWC only be read by normal clueless user, that will still buy the Next Total War game no matter how buggy and glitch the release or the game itself. (do its help the community and the game you play ??? Nooo is the answer)

    Rambling is sure good ways to express dissapointment, buts its never help your game to be more better. "Gods help one who help themself"

    Angry Joe already done it for us and i prefer watch his comment then actually read the problem that has been wroten in Total war center.
    Try make a good thread like "Hi guys lets share your knowledge on BAI feature or CAI feature", lets say we want this xxx and this xxx can its be possible, how to do that , what value we need to tweak. Rather just lets someone else do all the heavy lifting stuff, in that way you realy helped the community and modding development progress, and actually do some goodness for community. Look on Attila general discussion you can see lots of rambling thread and that why we realy dont need another one.

    I see so many people commenting CAI or BAI in Total War, but do they actually done something for themself to help Campaign AI or Battle AI modding scene, in Total War Center.Sure nobody will know every piece of information on db, but just a willingness to learn simple tweaking and try to improve the game by yourself is already another whole new step for you player to fix your own game. You can see whole new perpective from Total War Broken game and change it the way you see fit in your eyes.
    Last edited by Junaidi83 de Bodemloze; December 20, 2015 at 02:53 AM.
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  13. #13

    Default Re: Age of Charlemagne - Review and Impressions.

    Quote Originally Posted by Junaidi83 de Bodemloze View Post
    Darth Vader creator from Darthmod said this "we all have a pen, a ink and a paper, the difference between you and me is , i willing to try to write it".

    Empire Total War is one example of fine disaster, and he prove to be otherwise, we already have enough rambling post and thread from shogun 2 to Attila not a single CA game release will going without scrath or broken feature. Its up to player in the end, what will he do with the broken game, will he try to sit and repair and share its work to the rest of community or he can sit and wrote the dissapointment review that has been wroten over and over by many people (do its actually help the community in the end, the answer still no, C.A is already learned handy ability named "Deaf ear and Blind Eyes, also chilly silent". If one want wrote review so badly try to wrote it on Total War official forum, in that place its should be read by actuall game developer itself, while writing in TWC only be read by normal clueless user, that will still buy the Next Total War game no matter how buggy and glitch the release or the game itself. (do its help the community and the game you play ??? Nooo is the answer)

    Rambling is sure good ways to express dissapointment, buts its never help your game to be more better. "Gods help one who help themself"

    Angry Joe already done it for us and i prefer watch his comment then actually read the problem that has been wroten in Total war center.
    Try make a good thread like "Hi guys lets share your knowledge on BAI feature or CAI feature", lets say we want this xxx and this xxx can its be possible, how to do that , what value we need to tweak. Rather just lets someone else do all the heavy lifting stuff, in that way you realy helped the community and modding development progress, and actually do some goodness for community. Look on Attila general discussion you can see lots of rambling thread and that why we realy dont need another one.

    I see so many people commenting CAI or BAI in Total War, but do they actually done something for themself to help Campaign AI or Battle AI modding scene, in Total War Center.Sure nobody will know every piece of information on db, but just a willingness to learn simple tweaking and try to improve the game by yourself is already another whole new step for you player to fix your own game. You can see whole new perpective from Total War Broken game and change it the way you see fit in your eyes.
    I'm going to put this as politely as possible - It's not my job to fix the CAI and BAI.

    I made this review for people looking for info on what Age of Charlemagne is, unmodded at release. I honestly have no interest in making it any better because as much as I loved the series I feel that their is something wrong with the CORE strategic game play. I believe that the AI unfairly focus' the player which actually makes the game less challenging later on (they're all busy focusing on you they don't bother fighting and growing from each other). I believe that the unit diversity is lacking even for the dark ages. I believe the BAI is honestly to silly to have good fights with. The game looks good but like a lot of things that look good it's all superficial. Hell even the way units engage each other still feels wrong. They've had almost 2 years to correct that problem from Rome II and still it remains an issue.

    Perhaps a skilled mod maker has already fixed all these problems I've encountered. Hopefully this will make the DLC immensely better. But I don't really have the time to set up mods any more - especially since I moved away from the Total War community after Rome II and headed towards the CoH 2 community. Maybe the members of this community still have the patience to standby and fix the game. With one exception I've been fixing my game since Empire: Total War.

    The CAI has potential. It can do some pretty smart manoeuvres but more often than not it does something so stupid that it pulls me out the game. If I had a reliable co-op partner I'd like it more maybe even changing my mind to a buy it. However the BAI being really dumb and the CAI targeting the players irks me so much that I simply couldn't enjoy the game. 25 hours was as much as I could take without getting genuinely bored. All challenge in the game seems to bleed away at around the 10 hour mark because you grow so large while everyone else stays relatively small. These problems are what really holds me back from recommending this DLC - at least for most people. Perhaps the majority of fans here have the dedication to really mod this game and make it challenging. But that is not the point of a review. A review tells a game for what it is not what it could be. If I were to mention what this game could be I could go on for hours.

    This game could be great - the AI could be challenging - programmed to build empires that are strong and last with the player being treated as just another empire to work with when it suits them and against when it doesn't. But this is not the way the AI thinks.

    This game could be great - the unit variety could be immense with every faction having a localised spear levy, even if it only really changed in name. Armoured Frankish Warriors charging the Mercian Spear Brethren. But theme was ignored.

    This game could be great - the new addition of war exhaustion could of impacted a player and the AI greatly - actually forcing a player or AI to peace in the same way it works in Paradox Studio games. But instead it only affects the player and doesn't really force peace but encourages it.

    I'm a busy person - I make video content for another game, write review content and study. I don't have the time to mod nor do I have any interest in it. It doesn't take a great chef to know if a meal is bad, nor is it the patrons responsibility to fix a bad meal. My opinion is that Age of Charlemagne is mediocre. I shouldn't have to pay $15 for something that a mod maker could do better for free. Age of Charlemagne isn't bad. But it's not good. It's not worth $15 USD.

  14. #14
    Junaidi83 de Bodemloze's Avatar Dont Mess With Me
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    Default Re: Age of Charlemagne - Review and Impressions.

    . I shouldn't have to pay $15 for something that a mod maker could do better for free
    Actually you should since we modder dont even know how to create map yet , so its must buy , see that why C.A never want release full kit to create map, for example :XD

    Dont worry cant blame you as a gamers, its realy pain in the ass already pay so much to get so little. However this C.A we talking mate, for good or for worse we should follow them , no matter how bad they are, since right now they are the only one developer in the world that created total war series, full real time strategy battle, Eu 4 or civ still need many years to develop real battle system like total war . Like it or not we bound to C.A for another next years

    I'm going to put this as politely as possible - It's not my job to fix the CAI and BAI.
    I am assure you nobody wanted to do this honourable work at all with zero payment and thousand of hours lost in the process. I do it because i wanted the game as good as it can , and somehow by Zeus i managed it so far. Fixing CAI or BAI is worse then creating new unit texture or reskin, not only its require heavy testing, you also need to make solution from problem you get, not mention 0 tutorial from C.A meaning you need to figure it on your own.

    I think red project cd was a fine example of how good developer game should be, not only its free dlc, its also release full set of modding tool.
    God wish C.A have kind of decency like that
    Last edited by Junaidi83 de Bodemloze; December 20, 2015 at 09:31 AM.
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  15. #15
    easytarget's Avatar Libertus
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    Default Re: Age of Charlemagne - Review and Impressions.

    Quote Originally Posted by Cadian Guardsman View Post
    I'm a busy person
    If this were actually true you wouldn't waste time on anything as non-productive as posting these walls of text in a game forum nor making video content of any kind about games.

  16. #16

    Default Re: Age of Charlemagne - Review and Impressions.

    Quote Originally Posted by Junaidi83 de Bodemloze View Post
    Actually you should since we modder dont even know how to create map yet , so its must buy , see that why C.A never want release full kit to create map, for example :XD

    Dont worry cant blame you as a gamers, its realy pain in the ass already pay so much to get so little. However this C.A we talking mate, for good or for worse we should follow them , no matter how bad they are, since right now they are the only one developer in the world that created total war series, full real time strategy battle, Eu 4 or civ still need many years to develop real battle system like total war . Like it or not we bound to C.A for another next years
    I know, but we shouldn't support them when they hand us inferior products. If their next game is great or at least as good as base Attila when it comes to theme and unit variety (something I really think they're getting spot on based on previews) then i'll be the first to write a wall of text here praising CA. Till then :/


    Quote Originally Posted by Junaidi83 de Bodemloze View Post
    I am assure you nobody wanted to do this honourable work at all with zero payment and thousand of hours lost in the process. I do it because i wanted the game as good as it can , and somehow by Zeus i managed it so far. Fixing CAI or BAI is worse then creating new unit texture or reskin, not only its require heavy testing, you also need to make solution from problem you get, not mention 0 tutorial from C.A meaning you need to figure it on your own.

    I think red project cd was a fine example of how good developer game should be, not only its free dlc, its also release full set of modding tool.
    God wish C.A have kind of decency like that
    Fair enough. I guess people like me use their free time to tell people not to buy a mediocre DLC while you help people make their game fun and enjoyable. The thing is I genuinely believe that if bad DLC sells poorly then C/A will make good DLC - call it a drug addicts dream but it's on that I hope will come true one day.

    Quote Originally Posted by easytarget View Post
    If this were actually true you wouldn't waste time on anything as non-productive as posting these walls of text in a game forum nor making video content of any kind about games.
    This is true I'll rephrase - I'm a busy person because I make video content about games. I don't have any interest in mod making. I have an interest in helping people make the right decision when it comes to purchasing games and their DLC. If it even helps one person make up their mind then I deem it productive.

  17. #17
    Huberto's Avatar Praepositus
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    Default Re: Age of Charlemagne - Review and Impressions.

    Quote Originally Posted by Cadian Guardsman View Post
    It plays to defeat you, not tobuild an empire of its own; and it shows. The AI will still not take advantage of other states weakness' preferring to watch the playerlike a hawk.
    I noticed this a bit, but found it much, much less pronounced than Attila (especially Attila at release). Also I had several states almost build up kingdoms in my Frankish play through.


    Quote Originally Posted by Cadian Guardsman View Post
    Now the battle AI is just as idiotic, itclumps multiple units up to charge one of yours which would befine... if it outnumbered you which it rarely does. This simply leads to one of your units taking heavy casualties while your other unit get around the flank of the mismanaged mess and hits it hard.
    This is quite true and is the reason I've had my fill with battles, and have moved to mostly auto-resolve. I hope they figure out a BAI that tries to hold a line and guard it's flanks next time.

    Quote Originally Posted by Cadian Guardsman View Post
    The new features are pretty underwhelming and like most things just affect public order and loyalty of your commanders. The CAI being the CAI ignores this because of course it does, hell as far as I can tell it doesn't get affected by war exhaustion - I killed 6 full stacks every turn in a row during my Mercian campaign and Charlemagne was still happy to fight me to the death. I guess he really wanted to die... As I've said again and again moments like these pull you out of the experience and remind you that you are playing a game.
    In my campaign once I won a few battles and took a region or two, my opponent was happy to sue for peace and pay for the privilege. This is new.

    Quote Originally Posted by Cadian Guardsman View Post
    Wait for Total War: Warhammer - even if you don't like fantasy you'll like it better than this.
    What a silly thing to say.
    Last edited by Huberto; December 21, 2015 at 08:23 AM.

  18. #18

    Default Re: Age of Charlemagne - Review and Impressions.

    Thanks for the review. I enjoyed the read.

    One point on unit diversity that stands out to me is that in other tw games many factions shared units as now, but each factions units were slightly better or worse in some areas than the same one for others. So in MTW2 French knights were better than their English counterparts, or Chosokabe Bow ashigaru were better than others. In Rome 2 and Attila this seems to be done away with in favour of factional traits. I like the factional traits, but they do seem to be rather minor for the most part, and that has led to a seeming lack of diversity.

    Definitely agree with OP that minor changes could have been made to stats for same units of different nations along with minor name changes to reflect that (although AOC does kind of have that with Fyrd spears and levy spears for example)

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