Sieges will be the worst part of the game

[Renown]

Sieges the worst part of TW series?

Uh hello. You obviously never played any of the mods for M2TW. Like the TATW or Divide and conquer submod. When I founded that mod I made sure that sieges would be fun at the serious locations... but you all point to the sieges being poor when in RTW they were amazing. Short memories here now? What a shame. CA is completely capable of making all you want and more in sieges. They just aren't because frankly ... Sega. CA haven't made a single major stride in AI or unit functions outside of their 'fight lock' in Shogun 2, which... kind of broke multiple units vs one unit combat. Yet everyone ignores it because "oooh decapitation".

So if you want the real problem? It isn't sieges. It's a lack of focus on anything resembling serious AI work.

[Ngazi]

Has anyone played Rome Total War? Sieges were most of the game. Nothing wrong except some path finding issues.

[Aurelius Silvanus Tacitus]

I honestly think that the administration and strategy will be the worst since they will be either incredibly dumbed down or simply unpolished, unfinished and unbalanced

[Commissar Caligula_]

So if you want the real problem? It isn't sieges. It's a lack of focus on anything resembling serious AI work.

Hasn't the AI's cavalry tactics been massively improved? I only started playing Total War with the release of Rome 2, but since then I've played quite a bit of Medieval II onwards, and from what we've seen the AI does seem to be using cavalry much better for flanking and hammer/anvil tactics.

[Aurelius Silvanus Tacitus]

I remember that once sieges were one of the best parts about TW, with towers, sapping, ladders, cannnons, a ton of detailed settlement layouts and so on. Funny how now they are so bad.

As I have said before.

And siege battles continue their inevitable decline.

Ok, let's be honest here, CA/SEGA did not do anything else than ruin sieges after Medieval II:
-no sieges, cities so small you could barelly fit 6 units, few garrisonable buildings or an incredibly buggy fort siege in Empire and Napoleon. Everyon CAN ing climb the walls on ropes that your guys do not cut but just stand and wait for the enemy to come to them.
-Shogun 2(only game in Warscape where they inproved them): sieges less buggy, everyone CAN still climb... but at least it's risky and you risk losing your men to defenders(which could FIRE on them). You can set fire to gates... but they are wooden so it makes sense. Also the pathfinding it broken sometimes.
-Rome 2: at least no one can simply climb walls. AI in incredibly retarded, 66% of the settlements have no walls, blobbing gallore, you can set fire and destroy bronze of iron gates because..... the rest is history.
-Attila: I can wall now my settlements... with mud walls. Towers OP but autodestroy when captured(sometimes destroying gates too because screw logic and realism, we want fun like losing the elite units with which you captured said gates). Incredibly low variety of settlements. Barricades are cool but you can only position them in designated areas, no other defensibles(like the rolling stones, one of the good things of Rome II) and walls melt with the passing of time. Pathfinding still broken, gates are still made of marshmallow. AI needs catapults or else it never sieges walled settlements.
How to win as defender:chokepoint+defensive formation+tower.
-Warhammer: no more unwalled settlements and now all cities have propper walls(yay!). But everyone gets ladders so walls are easily climbable. You might also do that since towers have unlimited range and are still OP. Did I mention that you only get to pay on a section of the wall? So if you are a good fan and pre-order no matter what maybe you'll play on a corner map, with two gates. Have fun rushing, cause you can't do anything else now. Also it's time togo back to the Empire style: no walls, no siege...

Less might be sometimes more but we are getting less and less content and with lower quality for a bigger price. If this isn't highway robbery I dunno what it is.

[Caelifer_1991]

^ This. I just want Medieval 2 sieges back, with barricades and traps added. Nothing more, nothing less, nothing fancy or overly streamlined, just Medieval 2 with some moveable barricades and a trap or two, even if within a set of pre-defined positions. It can't be that hard, when they were 85% of where they needed to be 10 years ago with Medieval 2, surely?

[sobchack]

By Jove, were sieges EVER an exciting part of a TW game?

They actually are when you play multiplayer.

Ive said this before and ill say it again, If youre not playing h2h you are doing it wrong

And in response to people stating that sieges have never been an important aspect because the ai is bad, that same logic can be made for almost every aspect of the game.

EG: field battle ai is bad so who cares about field battles? Or campaign ai is bad so the campaign mode is unimportant

[Dorkus_Malorkus]

Hasn't the AI's cavalry tactics been massively improved? I only started playing Total War with the release of Rome 2, but since then I've played quite a bit of Medieval II onwards, and from what we've seen the AI does seem to be using cavalry much better for flanking and hammer/anvil tactics.

I thought Rome 2 AI was reasonable but were always let down by the unit selection. If you got your power infantry quite quickly, you could take Europe in a matter of years and the main worry was dissent/rebellion. Generally speaking, I found AI could not use terrain very well.

[August]

They actually are when you play multiplayer.

Ive said this before and ill say it again, If youre not playing h2h you are doing it wrong

Yeah... I'm gonna just go ahead and disagree with you on that...
This is a singleplayer series, with MP features, not the other way around, sir.

[Totalheadache]

Sieges the worst part of TW series?

Uh hello. You obviously never played any of the mods for M2TW. Like the TATW or Divide and conquer submod. When I founded that mod I made sure that sieges would be fun at the serious locations... but you all point to the sieges being poor when in RTW they were amazing. Short memories here now? What a shame. CA is completely capable of making all you want and more in sieges. They just aren't because frankly ... Sega. CA haven't made a single major stride in AI or unit functions outside of their 'fight lock' in Shogun 2, which... kind of broke multiple units vs one unit combat. Yet everyone ignores it because "oooh decapitation".

So if you want the real problem? It isn't sieges. It's a lack of focus on anything resembling serious AI work.

Agreed! I loved TATW and stainless steel etc...sieges were brilliant! (for the most part...except for the nasty bug where a.i would melt down and the fps would hit zero. Was always 4 stack mongol armies if I rem right).

[Taskeen]

Ah so my predictions for Sieges came true after all for this game.

And Rome 1 vanilla 1.6 Siege AI still remains the best in the series able to attack from all sides and retreats if failing to maintain a siege and build moar Siege. A shame CA isn't up to the challenge of a making as good a Siege in their new games compared to over a decade ago.

I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the "Why" for this sort of decline in the series. Loss of original teams from back then? Time constraints? Favoring Design in Casualization over Depth? Unable to mimic 10 year old AI within their new engine (and I don't see how since it is their engine to program as they see fit)?

[sobchack]

Yeah... I'm gonna just go ahead and disagree with you on that...
This is a singleplayer series, with MP features, not the other way around, sir.

Play the game however you want. But the biggest issue with the series is the ai, in all aspects, is trash. If you ever want to challenge yourself, try h2h

[The Despondent Mind]

Agreed! I loved TATW and stainless steel etc...sieges were brilliant! (for the most part...except for the nasty bug where a.i would melt down and the fps would hit zero. Was always 4 stack mongol armies if I rem right).

I personally think mtw2 sieges are almost unplayable, the pathfinding and collision is ridiculously broken.

When you play the defender, the deployment stage is almost useless, you can't do almost anything, they game simply refuses to co-operate with your commandments, which is baffling since rtw was functional in that regard.

[illathid]

I personally think mtw2 sieges are almost unplayable, the pathfinding and collision is ridiculously broken.

When you play the defender, the deployment stage is almost useless, you can't do almost anything, they game simply refuses to co-operate with your commandments, which is baffling since rtw was functional in that regard.

agreed

[Totalheadache]

Well had some great times with M2TW and Kingdoms with sieges. Also Napoleons were ok as were Shogun2 and Attilas.

Played a siege with GB in Napoleon just the other night. Bit simplistic but French made a good stab at taking the walls and my canister deterred any from getting into the fort. Worked and with all the musketry going off was immersive enough.

Generally though you can hold off several stacks easily but then taking forts was realistically hard.

[Renown]

I didn't mean to say M2TW sieges were perfect, they weren't. There are a LOT of long-standing engine/mechanic issues from M2TW to NOW that haven't been fixed at all. From Unit collision to cavalry charges to archer units. M1TW and RTW had the best AI of the series. Ever since Sega took over the focus has been on pzass... I remember a time when Total War gamers were going "please no more dog units and ridiculous special abilities". Now people.... just don't expect anything better.

This is what we get when CA hires lusted instead of Darth (power to anyone who knows what I'm talking about), and Sega focuses on things that advertise well and play worse.


Now people are buying this game under the mistaken impression (just go to IGN's review for example) that LOTR mods and the like will be abound.

It makes me laugh at them, just like I laugh at the Rise of Mordor. You can't have a Total Conversion of any depth without proper access to the campaign maps (of which they have remained mum, but they say 'battlemap editor!')

Okay, thanks for giving us less mod access to the game then we received ten years ago. I'm sure SEGA wasn't involved in that decision making process AT ALL. Anyone else here remember when TW sold more games BECAUSE of their mods then their base game? I do. It was as a consequence of mods raising their sales that SEGA bought CA. Yet as one of the reasons their series took over... wheres my cut? I get worse games, and no real modding ... as a result of my hard work and many hundreds of others? Thanks.

[Ciruelo]

With flying units and magic... sieges can be interesting for the first time in TW history

[CK23]

Yeah my biggest disappointment is seeing Altdorf's walls being the same size as all the rest.

Altdorf is supposed to have like 150 foot high walls!

Right, because we could TOTALLY balance that.

[Renown]

Right, because we could TOTALLY balance that.

Uhm... rofl? If we could recreate Minas Tirith for M2TW... then I'm pretty sure a professional development team could balance THEIR OWN game if they put their mind to it. It's time to accept it CK23, CA is not in the business of making good games anymore. They are making "the least we can while still selling" You could look through my posts... for a long time I defended them as they are the only developers in the business with this sort of product.

Now you see why Monopolies ARE NOT GOOD for the consumer. If you can't see that...

[Renown]

Hasn't the AI's cavalry tactics been massively improved? I only started playing Total War with the release of Rome 2, but since then I've played quite a bit of Medieval II onwards, and from what we've seen the AI does seem to be using cavalry much better for flanking and hammer/anvil tactics.

No. They haven't. I can promise you this. I play Attila and M2TW regularly and Shogun 2. The cavalry flanks .... every now and then, but their solution to fix general units charging has resulted in the following (a) It doesn't charge at all and sometimes doesn't move at all, even as the last unit, (b) it charges after other units charge... but since they are faster they still die first.... directly into spear units.

Yet ironically enough, in m2tw... they avoid pike units MORE and flank MORE then in Attila.