Thrones of Britannia: Criticism Thread

[Theramines]

Overall it's a solid game and I recommend it. However, there are a couple of things that annoy me.

Firstly, I pre-ordered this game as its setting appealed to me and I wanted to support the Saga concept and the charity scheme. It's the only time I have pre-ordered. I have nothing against pre-ordering per se. I've enjoyed the game for the few hours that I've played. However, without blood the battles feel sanitised and lack immersion. Who eats chips without salt? Now the game sits unplayed as I've decided to wait for blood, which could be up to two or three months away based on previous TW releases. Maybe it's due to censorship laws (generally stupid and hypocritical laws I might add), maybe it's marketing, whatever the reason, I now have learnt not to buy TW games at release. In future I will wait, for there is little point in playing a TW game with crucial graphic effects missing.

Secondly, the campaign lacks cultural tension. Whether it fits the period or not, it is something that makes a strategy game richer. I have only played about 8 hours, so maybe I missed it somehow, but I do feel its absence takes away a little of the difficulty necessary to keep a campaign challenging.

Finally, the old Attila game-keeps-running-in-the-background-after-you-exit problem has returned. Steam says I've played 10 hours, but I reckon it's about 8. Please fix this.

The game has a lot of promise and I look forward to returning to it after patching and blood dlc.

[♔Greek Strategos♔]

Finally, the old Attila game-keeps-running-in-the-background-after-you-exit problem has returned. Steam says I've played 10 hours, but I reckon it's about 8. Please fix this.

I'm having the same issue with Rome 2. I believe it may varies depending on the system. Some people have it, others don't.

[alQamar]

The exit problem is caused by the TW launcher and indeed started with Medieval 2 and continued with Shogun 2 and later.

They never fixed this issue for sure and it isn't very reproducible either.

Bad tongues say the intention is to keep the steam stats high (amount of players and hours played count) and it really got statistically relevant with Rome 2.

Imho it's sheer lazyness to address the bug or they fail to reproduce it on their own.
I would recommend to download "all in one runtime" from computerbase.de and only install all c++ redists from the package. Unfortunately MS and devs don't care to patch them.





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[♔Greek Strategos♔]

The exit problem is caused by the TW launcher and indeed started with Medieval 2 and continued with Shogun 2 and later.

They never fixed this issue for sure and it isn't very reproducible either. I would recommend to download "all in one runtime" from computerbase.de and only install all c++ redists from the package. Unfortunately MS and devs don't care to patch them.

Yeah...I already tried most sensible solutions.

Bad tongues say the intention is to keep the steam stats high (amount of players and hours played count) and it really got statistically relevant with Rome 2.

If that's the case then...

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[alQamar]

have you updated the c++ stuff too? As a side effect the updates are security relevant too.

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[♔Greek Strategos♔]

have you updated the c++ stuff too? As a side effect the updates are security relevant too.

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Yep. I keep everything OCD level updated.
It's an issue I could live with though, we had far more serious problems before. Eventually it will be solved, I wish.

[Krieglord]

I am pretty sure for every TW game these days after MTW2 I have to go into task manager afterward and stop the process.

[alQamar]

I'd say that all people that can repro it should open a ticket at Sega support pointing out the issues are going back to the Med 2 launcher and also aggregate posts on the official forum and Twitter /reddit.

If there are enough people using the channels they may finally fix it

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[♔Greek Strategos♔]

I'd say that all people that can repro it should open a ticket at Sega support pointing out the issues are going back to the Med 2 launcher and also aggregate posts on the official forum and Twitter /reddit.

If there are enough people using the channels they may finally fix it

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Υep. I'm planning to open a ticket for this. I hope others will also find the time to do it.

[alQamar]

Great please let me know the outcome. If there is a solution I am willing to post a how to in steam groups.

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[♔Greek Strategos♔]

Great please let me know the outcome. If there is a solution I am willing to post a how to in steam groups.

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Sure.

[Forward Observer]

I have the issue occasionally with Shogun 2 and Rome 2, if I try to exit the game directly from the strategy map. The game will just hang and I have to use the task manager to end task.

However, if I instead exit the strat map to the main menu first and then exit the game, to the best of my knowledge, it's not happening.

[leerm02]

My biggest complaint so far:
Where is the Nordic Paganism?

I'm re-reading the Saxon Chronicles right now and really wish they had included the interplay of Christian vs. Pagan that features so heavy in those books. It doesn't have to be a really in depth system or anything but...well, It's just weird to have no paganism of any kind represented :-(

[♔Greek Strategos♔]

I have the issue occasionally with Shogun 2 and Rome 2, if I try to exit the game directly from the strategy map. The game will just hang and I have to use the task manager to end task.

However, if I instead exit the strat map to the main menu first and then exit the game, to the best of my knowledge, it's not happening.

Quick question, are you using Win 7 or Win 10 ?

[Theramines]

My biggest complaint so far:
Where is the Nordic Paganism?

I'm re-reading the Saxon Chronicles right now and really wish they had included the interplay of Christian vs. Pagan that features so heavy in those books. It doesn't have to be a really in depth system or anything but...well, It's just weird to have no paganism of any kind represented :-(

Yes, I agree. It's such a strange omission. As I mentioned earlier, the absence of any cultural tension on the campaign map really feels off. Serious question: is it something that can be patched in relatively easily? Modded in? I know CA has a track record of sticking to obvious blunders, like insta-transports and torching gates, but is it something that can be patched in as a response to a lot of complaints about lack of depth and an easy campaign, or is it too deeply embedded in the code to change now?

[♔Greek Strategos♔]

They felt such a mechanism will not be missed from a quick blitz campaign, I guess.

[zoner16]

My biggest complaint so far:
Where is the Nordic Paganism?

I'm re-reading the Saxon Chronicles right now and really wish they had included the interplay of Christian vs. Pagan that features so heavy in those books. It doesn't have to be a really in depth system or anything but...well, It's just weird to have no paganism of any kind represented :-(

From what I understand of the Saxon Chronicle, it's designed to be a bit of a propaganda piece, so the portrayal of a faithful, righteous Alfred driving back the barbaric, pagan vikings doesn't find a lot of credence with modern historians, since other sources and archaeology seem to indicate that religion wasn't much of an issue after the initial invasion.

However, the lack of it really does make the campaign too easy. I think that there should be more events referencing either conversion or syncretism from pagan to christian, and there should have been a culture mechanic. I don't think that it should have had the drastic public order effect that it did in Rome II, but I do think it should have placed some limitation on you so you couldn't just blitz down an enemy kingdom in a few turns without consequence. It would have also been really cool if some of the nobles you got from the pool were of a different culture than your own, so you had to choose if you wanted a guy with really good bonuses, but lower loyalty due to culture.

[Huberto]

Yes, I agree. It's such a strange omission. As I mentioned earlier, the absence of any cultural tension on the campaign map really feels off. Serious question: is it something that can be patched in relatively easily? Modded in? I know CA has a track record of sticking to obvious blunders, like insta-transports and torching gates, but is it something that can be patched in as a response to a lot of complaints about lack of depth and an easy campaign, or is it too deeply embedded in the code to change now?

Interesting. Like you, I miss a culture mechanic in ThroB. I imagine there are numerous game features like culture that got cut. Recalling now that Tim Heaton, one of CA's honchos, claimed in a Gamasutra piece that cutting features is their design approach:

TH: We go through the design process, which is pretty wide and all-encompassing, and then scope it out and then start cutting features, because hopefully we've got such a huge bag of features that we want, that it makes it physically impossible to ever make a game with all those in. So we'll cut some straight out, and we'll then start prototyping and judging the quality all the way through...While we're prototyping we're also figuring out how long the work that we'll need to do will take. It's a piecemeal work. And sometimes we'll need to pull stuff out, because although we can reach quality threshold that we want, it will simply take too long. So we will cut features, rather than delivering an 80 percent quality feature. And that all builds on top of each other, and all the features need to be of high quality; we don't really want to let any substandard features go in.

[zoner16]

Interesting. Like you, I miss a culture mechanic in ThroB. I imagine there are numerous game features like culture that got cut. Recalling now that Tim Heaton, one of CA's honchos, claimed in a Gamasutra piece that cutting features is their design approach:

Cutting out stuff that is going to take too long/isn't going to work well is every game studio's design approach.

Except kickstarter games, much to their own detriment.

[♔Greek Strategos♔]

Cutting down features is their new design approach ?
Oh boy... how about cutting down features because they can't make them work, but usually modders can ?