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Thread: My Impressions of the Game

  1. #21

    Default Re: My Impressions of the Game

    I am playing Sudreyar (sic?). Inspired by the TV show, Vikings.

    I am not paying too much attention to the traits. Besides, when I was appointing a Governor unless I am missing a button, I didn't see any info on traits. It is still very odd that any appointed person is instantaneously disloyal and you immediately have to pay them off. Sudreyar as plenty of territories but no estates to bribe, so it is expensive to hire anyone. I have already killed two people and apparently, despite their influence, no one seemed to mind me doing it.

  2. #22

    Default Re: My Impressions of the Game

    I just finished a long campaign with new patch as Gwined.

    It was alright, biggest issues:

    a) Estates. Basically useless. I got maybe three quests in 250 turns to grant estates. You grant them and that's that (I have a feeling the quest pops out only when you have free estates to grant, and none came after turn 100). That's quite a useless system, as useless as the previous one.
    b) Battles. I consistently got a loss ratio of 1 to 10 in equal battles. It is so easy to set up a strong line and flank. AI's line are always narrower so you easily envelop them every single time. And archers are murderous. We need some better, slower battle mechanics. The biggest battle I had was my two stacks against 4 Norman ones and that one was a bit of challenge, but still too easy. Screenshot https://cdn.pbrd.co/images/HYoi2l9.jpg

    c) Sieges. Take Welsh Longbowman with extended range, kill everyone, climb empty walls. Ramparts should offer a lot more protection, especially if the unit is not shooting back. Very similar loss ratio as above.

    Other then that, it was decent fun.
    Last edited by Odinarius; January 27, 2019 at 07:52 AM.

  3. #23

    Default Re: My Impressions of the Game

    I had the same experience with the Estates. I had just two incidences when I had to offer estates to satisfy them. A positive is that whenever I appointed a new general or Governor I rarely had their opinion of me start off bad. Again, maybe 3 or 4 times.
    It seems we went from one extreme to the next.

    In my Sudreyar campaign, I manage to conquer all the way down to Mercia and East Anglia borders and northern Wales. I would later invade Ireland and took about 40%. For some reason, my economy went from 6-9000 to -2,000 in just a few turns. maybe a research technology affected it, but that harkens back to the original problem. Is there a point in researching a technology if the net result is a poorer economy with little or no real benefit.

    I would 'win" the long campaign, but I continued playing The Dene and Norse both invaded. The combined strength of 10 armies of 16-20 size. I had 9 armies. All of them attacked "me." Both attacked away from all of my armies. As if the system "knew." This is just strange. I had a similar thing happen in a battle where I had maneuver my Cavs around the enemy. For some unknown reason, a unit started running back towards them. The system did not "announced" their discovery until much later. I do not mind the AI not being foolish, but they made a "B- line" for my units. The AI should have kept them in reserve, not send them to attack empty space. Anyway, the map is so large and if you make it to the end, your kingdom is large, it is impossible to defend againt 5 large armies that concentrate o the weak point.

    I cannot comment on siege battles because I usually wait it out. Either I have a huge advantage (not worth the time to fight) or they come out to fight me.

  4. #24
    ♔Greek Strategos♔'s Avatar THE BEARDED MACE
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    Default Re: My Impressions of the Game

    Quote Originally Posted by Odinarius View Post
    I just finished a long campaign with new patch as Gwined.

    It was alright, biggest issues:

    a) Estates. Basically useless. I got maybe three quests in 250 turns to grant estates. You grant them and that's that (I have a feeling the quest pops out only when you have free estates to grant, and none came after turn 100). That's quite a useless system, as useless as the previous one.
    b) Battles. I consistently got a loss ratio of 1 to 10 in equal battles. It is so easy to set up a strong line and flank. AI's line are always narrower so you easily envelop them every single time. And archers are murderous. We need some better, slower battle mechanics. The biggest battle I had was my two stacks against 4 Norman ones and that one was a bit of challenge, but still too easy. Screenshot https://cdn.pbrd.co/images/HYoi2l9.jpg

    c) Sieges. Take Welsh Longbowman with extended range, kill everyone, climb empty walls. Ramparts should offer a lot more protection, especially if the unit is not shooting back. Very similar loss ratio as above.

    Other then that, it was decent fun.
    a)I feel Estates system is something borrowed from EU IV game, but sadly left unfinished.
    b)Vanilla battles were always easy in every TW title since Shogun 1 and it's not something that will change IMO.

    Quote Originally Posted by PikeStance View Post
    I had the same experience with the Estates. I had just two incidences when I had to offer estates to satisfy them. A positive is that whenever I appointed a new general or Governor I rarely had their opinion of me start off bad. Again, maybe 3 or 4 times.
    It seems we went from one extreme to the next.

    In my Sudreyar campaign, I manage to conquer all the way down to Mercia and East Anglia borders and northern Wales. I would later invade Ireland and took about 40%. For some reason, my economy went from 6-9000 to -2,000 in just a few turns. maybe a research technology affected it, but that harkens back to the original problem. Is there a point in researching a technology if the net result is a poorer economy with little or no real benefit.

    I would 'win" the long campaign, but I continued playing The Dene and Norse both invaded. The combined strength of 10 armies of 16-20 size. I had 9 armies. All of them attacked "me." Both attacked away from all of my armies. As if the system "knew." This is just strange. I had a similar thing happen in a battle where I had maneuver my Cavs around the enemy. For some unknown reason, a unit started running back towards them. The system did not "announced" their discovery until much later. I do not mind the AI not being foolish, but they made a "B- line" for my units. The AI should have kept them in reserve, not send them to attack empty space. Anyway, the map is so large and if you make it to the end, your kingdom is large, it is impossible to defend againt 5 large armies that concentrate o the weak point.

    I cannot comment on siege battles because I usually wait it out. Either I have a huge advantage (not worth the time to fight) or they come out to fight me.
    Are you actually saying that AI is too smart now ?

  5. #25

    Default Re: My Impressions of the Game

    Quote Originally Posted by ♔Greek Strategos♔ View Post
    a)I feel Estates system is something borrowed from EU IV game, but sadly left unfinished.
    b)Vanilla battles were always easy in every TW title since Shogun 1 and it's not something that will change IMO.
    I wouldn't say borrowed. It is based on history.
    If they spend half the amount of time they spend on the tactical aspects of the game as they do with the campaign side, then we would see something special.

    Quote Originally Posted by ♔Greek Strategos♔ View Post
    Are you actually saying that AI is too smart now ?
    No, it is just the opposite. AI is ultimately all-knowing, not smarter.

  6. #26
    Jurand of Cracow's Avatar History and gameplay!
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    Default Re: My Impressions of the Game

    Quote Originally Posted by PikeStance View Post
    when I was appointing a Governor unless I am missing a button, I didn't see any info on traits. It is still very odd that any appointed person is instantaneously disloyal and you immediately have to pay them off. Sudreyar as plenty of territories but no estates to bribe, so it is expensive to hire anyone. I have already killed two people and apparently, despite their influence, no one seemed to mind me doing it.
    I thinks it's a good mechanism preventing from over-recruitment. On the other hand, that killing-spree is indeed a bad feature of the ToB. It should not go unpunished (similar to the CK2).

    Quote Originally Posted by Odinarius View Post
    a) Estates. Basically useless. I got maybe three quests in 250 turns to grant estates. You grant them and that's that (I have a feeling the quest pops out only when you have free estates to grant, and none came after turn 100). That's quite a useless system, as useless as the previous one.
    b) Battles. I consistently got a loss ratio of 1 to 10 in equal battles. It is so easy to set up a strong line and flank. AI's line are always narrower so you easily envelop them every single time. And archers are murderous. We need some better, slower battle mechanics. The biggest battle I had was my two stacks against 4 Norman ones and that one was a bit of challenge, but still too easy. Screenshot https://cdn.pbrd.co/images/HYoi2l9.jpg

    c) Sieges. Take Welsh Longbowman with extended range, kill everyone, climb empty walls. Ramparts should offer a lot more protection, especially if the unit is not shooting back. Very similar loss ratio as above.
    Estates - I share this experience. For the moment they're useless, they need balancing as far as triggers are concerned etc.
    Bows - this is also my conclusion. I'd also love the Attila solution that the longer the siege is, the more damage is done to the settlement, the lower the stats of the units are (or is it also in the ToB? haven't noticed it...).
    Battles - what difficulty do you play? I have a rather difficult time fightithinkMierce against the armored Norman invaders at VH. I've also watched Legen of Total War fighting a defence siege battles and he just made it having crew of 2,5k against 2k of the Normands. He was expecting to lose, so it's not unusual.
    On the other hand - yes, the AI leaves plenty of space to flank and attack from behind. Saddly, H&A is still the best technique.

    Quote Originally Posted by PikeStance View Post
    I had the same experience with the Estates. I had just two incidences when I had to offer estates to satisfy them.
    I think the Estates should be demanded as the kingdom grows. This would induce the player to invest into researching and building the Noble Estates. For the moment, there's no point.

    Quote Originally Posted by PikeStance View Post
    For some reason, my economy went from 6-9000 to -2,000 in just a few turns. maybe a research technology affected it, but that harkens back to the original problem. Is there a point in researching a technology if the net result is a poorer economy with little or no real benefit.
    It's difficult for me to think that it was the technology effect. It cannot have such an impact. I would rather suspect especially the rising corruption. This is the main (and the very good) way of preventing the snowballing of the economy. And this makes nurturing the good governors worthwhile. I think a bad event may have also added to it.

    Quote Originally Posted by PikeStance View Post
    I would 'win" the long campaign, but I continued playing The Dene and Norse both invaded. The combined strength of 10 armies of 16-20 size. I had 9 armies. All of them attacked "me." Both attacked away from all of my armies. As if the system "knew." This is just strange. I had a similar thing happen in a battle where I had maneuver my Cavs around the enemy. For some unknown reason, a unit started running back towards them. The system did not "announced" their discovery until much later. I do not mind the AI not being foolish, but they made a "B- line" for my units. The AI should have kept them in reserve, not send them to attack empty space. Anyway, the map is so large and if you make it to the end, your kingdom is large, it is impossible to defend againt 5 large armies that concentrate o the weak point.
    Well, my experience is different but I admit settin my 6 armies in such a way that it was irrelevant where would they come. And 2 out of 3 groups attacked other areas, not my territories. What gives me a bit of a headache - I need to go away of my territories to kill those armies.
    Last edited by Jurand of Cracow; January 28, 2019 at 10:52 AM.
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  7. #27

    Default Re: My Impressions of the Game

    I play on normal. I am quite annoyed with AI bonuses on tactical map, when one on one I lose to the same unit. I don't usually play vanilla, but I have no choice here, no decent overhauls yet... Waiting for Shieldwall before I start a next campaign.

    Yes, economy is a bit more ridiculous then usual TW. Corruption seems to start to rise quite early so yes, the more you conquer, the less you have. Some law buildings are reducing it, but they also cost upkeep, so it often cancels each other out.

  8. #28
    Jurand of Cracow's Avatar History and gameplay!
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    Default Re: My Impressions of the Game

    Quote Originally Posted by Odinarius View Post
    I play on normal. I am quite annoyed with AI bonuses on tactical map, when one on one I lose to the same unit. I don't usually play vanilla, but I have no choice here, no decent overhauls yet... Waiting for Shieldwall before I start a next campaign.

    Yes, economy is a bit more ridiculous then usual TW. Corruption seems to start to rise quite early so yes, the more you conquer, the less you have. Some law buildings are reducing it, but they also cost upkeep, so it often cancels each other out.
    I absolutely agree that mods would fix many things in the Thrones. However, I don't have much expectations, it's already close to one year after the release and I haven't seen much work into the details and balance of the game.

    On the battles - well, it's enough just to play on hard or very hard to solve your problem with 1-10 losses ratio ;-)

    Economy - I've also got a different opinion. Corruption is still too low for preventing from steamrolling the map. It's because it's easy to level up the Governance attribute of the governors. On VH*3 I hadn't had any problems with money, it was the Food what made the limit to the number of troops I fielded.

  9. #29

    Default Re: My Impressions of the Game

    Well, my experience is somewhat different. Food was limiting at times, up until half the game. I had surplus in the hundreds for the other half.

    Money was more limiting, and only at the very end it became plentiful. I think corruption tops around 80% so you actually make more money with each conquest.

  10. #30

    Default Re: My Impressions of the Game

    Quote Originally Posted by Jurand of Cracow View Post
    I think the Estates should be demanded as the kingdom grows. This would induce the player to invest into researching and building the Noble Estates. For the moment, there's no point.
    It did to a very limited extent, but, it was far too little with too little effect on your game.

    Quote Originally Posted by Jurand of Cracow View Post
    It's difficult for me to think that it was the technology effect. It cannot have such an impact. I would rather suspect especially the rising corruption. This is the main (and the very good) way of preventing the snowballing of the economy. And this makes nurturing the good governors worthwhile. I think a bad event may have also added to it.
    I went back to an older save point and this time I did not research the technology and I had little to no issues.

    In this game, I was earning as much as 10,000 per turn with food being 1000+ for most of the time. I am now King of Briton.

    Quote Originally Posted by Jurand of Cracow View Post
    Well, my experience is different but I admit settin my 6 armies in such a way that it was irrelevant where would they come. And 2 out of 3 groups attacked other areas, not my territories. What gives me a bit of a headache - I need to go away of my territories to kill those armies.
    I need to amend. This time two groups came from the South. Fortunately, I was attacking the "Anglo-Saxons." I had no trouble. The Norse attacked in the same NW corner. The attacks do not appear to be random.

    Generally, this game has enormous potential.

  11. #31
    Jurand of Cracow's Avatar History and gameplay!
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    Default Re: My Impressions of the Game

    I absolutely agree the game has a big potential. It provides great opportunities to mod them in a historical way. Alas, there're no such devoted moders as the EBII team for Medieval 2, or DeI team for Rome 2. I think this is the biggest problem for history-lovers of Thrones: no full overhaul twisting all the aspects to make it feel more historical. And I don't mean any battle or graphics related elements, I just mean gameplay and mechanics twisting and balancing.

    I've been playing on VH/VH/VH difficulty level. I don't play Legendary as I like to micromanage (what is not possible on Leg) in battles and at the same time you cannot set either Leg/Leg/VH difficulty or switch to VH battles during your game.

    I've detected that on VH the frequency of the band/good events is heavily skewed towards the good ones. For occasional public order hit It'd say 2/3 are positive (mostly +6) while 1/3 negative (mostly -3). The estate demands very rare, one for 30 turns maybe. So it's very easy and you get bounties out of the blue.

    I think CA guys noticed that the negative reaction of the audience (eg on Steam) came from the difficulty of the game. Given that it's in human nature to be happy from getting gifts (anything for free), now you get Public Order from Santa, not from your play. And this is at the very hard difficulty - not normal, not hard!

    What I've noticed on Steam discussions after the August update was that people complained about loyalty and civil wars problems while playing Legendary or VH. There were many complaints, and people wouldn't accept that they should have played at lower difficulties. Following this, CA introduced "political difficulty" slider. I have a strong impression is that it has balanced the whole game to be much easier as well. And it worked - people on Steam are happy now.

    So we need moders like Byg to create Thrones Grim Reality. But I don't think it will happen, as said.

  12. #32

    Default Re: My Impressions of the Game

    I can understand the "civil war" complaint. The problem with that mechanic was that it happened in the early campaign where you owned very little or the minute you go to war, you have a civil war and an external war to fight. From a historical and common sense perspective, it is unlikely to occur like that. In the later game, it opted to have "outside forces" be an antagonist, rather than internal strife. The external invasions should be smaller but more frequent adding to unpredictability and just enough of a distraction that internal strife to become more real.

    The first campaign I played on ToB (Gwind and Cicern) both ended in failure. I was only successful as Milde and now Sudreyar (but played on the latest update). If I recall, it was very hard in the beginning, but once to made it to the middle game, then it became too easy. The problem with CA games is that they have never been able to "turn up the heat" after the middle game.

    Modding the game is always possible. Unfortunately, the modding community has become less cohesive and this requires an active community. Hopefully, we can bring modders back to TWC. The lack of popularity isn't helping. I wish I had the time to organize something.

  13. #33

    Default Re: My Impressions of the Game

    Quote Originally Posted by Jurand of Cracow View Post
    So we need moders like Byg to create Thrones Grim Reality. But I don't think it will happen, as said.
    Quote Originally Posted by PikeStance View Post
    Modding the game is always possible. Unfortunately, the modding community has become less cohesive and this requires an active community. Hopefully, we can bring modders back to TWC. The lack of popularity isn't helping. I wish I had the time to organize something.
    How about CoK and Radious? Do they improve game play? It seems CoK is dead?
    Under the Patronage of Hadrian

  14. #34
    Jurand of Cracow's Avatar History and gameplay!
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    Default Re: My Impressions of the Game

    Quote Originally Posted by jegui View Post
    How about CoK and Radious? Do they improve game play? It seems CoK is dead?
    Radious - given that the goal of this mod is different (not historical) I haven't checked what changes he's bringing about.
    CoK - I've studies the changes at some point in the past but I haven't found them really changing the gameplay so I haven't tried it.

    The problem with the gameplay is that you need both moders with the invention, skills and devotion, and also the testers and players who would tell you how to strike the balance. Just look at DEI, EB, EBII or TATW - huge fan base and plenty of submods. As PikeStance said it doesn't exist for ToB at present. Look at forae at TWC, Steam and TWF - very little substantial discussion.

    Besides, I don't see much opportunities in modding the battlefield in ToB. They require very little from the player and there's little potential to change it - both because of the engine but also because of the historical period: this was not the time for the tacticians using terrain etc.

    This is, again, very unfortunate since the graphical side of the game is superb and the steering is so smooth and user-friendly.

    For now, it's unbalanced and way too easy.
    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 
    Last edited by Jurand of Cracow; February 05, 2019 at 08:35 AM.

  15. #35

    Default Re: My Impressions of the Game

    Quote Originally Posted by Jurand of Cracow View Post
    Radious - given that the goal of this mod is different (not historical) I haven't checked what changes he's bringing about.
    CoK - I've studies the changes at some point in the past but I haven't found them really changing the gameplay so I haven't tried it.

    The problem with the gameplay is that you need both moders with the invention, skills and devotion, and also the testers and players who would tell you how to strike the balance. Just look at DEI, EB, EBII or TATW - huge fan base and plenty of submods. As PikeStance said it doesn't exist for ToB at present. Look at forae at TWC, Steam and TWF - very little substantial discussion.

    Besides, I don't see much opportunities in modding the battlefield in ToB. They require very little from the player and there's little potential to change it - both because of the engine but also because of the historical period: this was not the time for the tacticians using terrain etc.

    This is, again, very unfortunate since the graphical side of the game is superb and the steering is so smooth and user-friendly.

    For now, it's unbalanced and way too easy.
    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

    Guess I will have to wait for another bigger sale because the Lunar one is not yet value for money... well I ended up getting Warhammer 2 which gives more content and potential although not my favourite game style
    Under the Patronage of Hadrian

  16. #36

    Default Re: My Impressions of the Game

    it's too focused on britain, there's no variety, that's my main issue with it

    it's not a bad game tho

  17. #37
    Bran Mac Born's Avatar Artifex
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    Default Re: My Impressions of the Game

    You may find my campaign AI mod will spice things up and will be a more exciting experience. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfil...?id=2156063756

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