Re: Valve leaks Steam game player counts
Sure but it has dragons and unicorns. You do not like unicorns Diocle ?Originally Posted by Diocle
Cm'on! It's just a Fantasy game!
ToB is a bad game. Its under-performing sells are logical and deserved. ToB suffers from a poor marketing campaign, features removed, unambitious gameplay design and a dubious artistic direction.It is simple. Look at all other TWs, comparison with other TWs is the main problem of ToB:
Rome - everybody will imagine Roman Legions, conquering whole world. Rome is symbol or greatness. Imperial Splendour, Ceasar, Hannibal, Augustus, Cleopatra. Big map from Frozen England almost to the India.
Medieval - Another beloved settings, similar maps, crusades, Pope. Western Audience loves knights and castles, Attila is probably the most similar to this from recent titles with Campaign map size and faction diversity and with fall of Rome. Attila is also great historical character.
Warhammer -ing Dragons fighting
You see what all these TWs have similar? WH, Attila, Rome? Big campaign map, lot factions, lot additional content from DLCs..Looks like ToB from very beginning was intented to have almost no additional DLCs. That´s the problem while all other TWs are adding tons of additional content as FLCs or DLCs (you don´t have to buy DLC, AI will have all additions so the game gets better even for you!). But these games can start with some factions not fully fledged out and just add them later via DLCs.
Attila is as well 40EU game but with knowledge about future DLCs they could aim higher with content and finish properly it later. But ToB had to do all factions from very beginning and that means some resources. At the same time the time frame, geographical setting is limited and that is limiting even faction diversity, units...there are simply no camels, elephants, horse archers/cavalry factions like steppe factions in Attila.
So with all of this, what TW would you buy? If you put them all side by side. Rome 2, Attila, Whs, ToB is simply feels like smaller game. That´s my reason why not many people are trying it, with sales you can easily get a older bigger games. Yet, I played it without prejudice and it is quite good. Overall good TW. I´m missing awesome feeling of other TWs but enjoying it like more quiet smaller time period, like playing just some bigger DLC. Finished 4 campaigns and overall I had fun yet I was lacking any memorable moment.
Its pre-release marketing was poor for multiple reasons :
First ToB's focus was already covered by Attila. Vikings were the focus of Attila pre-release faction DLC. Irish and Scottish factions were covered by a following faction DLC. Then Charlemagne made playing the Anglo-Saxons and the Vikings (once again) during a timeframe close to ToB. So ToB felt very much like a repetition of Attila DLCs with the additional disadvantage of Attila being a stand alone DLC from Rome 2. TOB also suffered from its release calendar. It was announced and release after Warhammer II had been announced but before it was released. CA created confusion with its Saga thing. Fans already complained ToB looked like a glorified DLC for Attila and CA exacerbated the fears by telling Saga titles are smaller title than "normal" TW titles. After its initial misstep CA struggled to present ToB and its Saga thing as genuine stand alone title. Lastly Legend of Total War certainly damaged ToB's sells when he covered negatively the title, criticizing the title as dull and with too many cut content. To be fair his negative preview was entirely justified.
The content of ToB is not good :
There are too many cut contents. Ambushes were removed for unknown reasons. Character's retinue and skills point were clumsily merged. Religions and cultures taken out even as it should have been extensively covered given the period. Special agents were totally removed instead of reworked. Even diplomacy was simplified. Worse there is barely anything to replace the cut-off contents. Oddly enough, CA kept the technology tree even as during the Early Middle Age in the Britannic Isles hardly looks like a time of innovations and discoveries.
CA and Jack Lusted tried to present ToB as an innovative title where they experimented many thing. It is not really true. For example the unit recruitment with few elites troops available existed in Medieval 2. A title released 12 years ago. Ok you do not need any building for recruitment but this was essentially true for units which only require the main building chain in earlier titles. Despite the smaller focus, individual factions do not feel really unique. The war weariness system of Charlemagne was implemented without change. As a result it ended up doing the exact opposite of its intention : allowing a victorious player to steamroll at will while punishing further players in trouble against the AI. Basically CA distributed different bar to fill or balance automatically. With the patch they are essentially copying the rites system of Warhammer 2. Let's agree its too little.
The battle gameplay is also disappointing. During his recent interview, Jack tried to present positively ToB's battle by claiming the shield wall is presented in an automatic fashion. But in truth CA just reduced the unit spacing and tone down the pourcentage of 1vs1 animations. That is hardly an introduction of shield-wall warfare and it is a shame.
Despite its narrow focus, the game is unpolished. Typically the walls in ToB are a copy-past of Attila walls despite the fact that siege warfare of Late Roman era and Anglo-Saxon era had nothing in common. There is not even an animation to remove battering ram once the gates are breached ...
Overall the campaign gameplay suffered from too many cut contents and a general clumsy implementation of the remaining features.
A final note on the artistic direction :
The artistic direction is difficult to understand. CA choose to cover the British Isles shortly after the Great Heathen Army. The studio intentionally choose to not cover the most iconic viking invasion of England to focus to "what happens after", as CA liked to say before the game release. I think it is a fine idea. But then they added some epic music track including the main one which would have been for fitting for the Great Heathen Army. The game introduction has an ill-fitting modern direction and the game UI a very different style. It feels like there is no coherence in the artistic direction. In my opinion the game misses the mysterious, simple and mythical atmosphere fitting with Early Middle Age (particularly in the British Island).
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Time for EMPIRE 2!
gold mine) Tropico 4 2,000,449 Europa Universalis IV 1,983,657 Stellaris 1,967,015 In article there is link for full file with many more games like 13,000. Article is showing only top games. Interesting thing is,there is no Shogun 2 and ToB which is probably not interesting at all, but list is going down till 240,000 unique players. Plus there are no old titles which were mostly sold in ancient times before steam like Shogun, Med 1+2, Romeas these have no achievements and they probably accumulated a few players on steam anyway. :-) And bear in mind this is not active playerbase, only total number of unique players so older games will accumulate more and more over sales and time.. Original article: 
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numbers before free week were much lower, Free week was great influx of players and some stick around because great mods ;-) We can see lower K surpassing even initial numbers...and numbers after that are clearly higher.
