Poll: Napolean: Total War: First Unoriginal Thread

[Jandau]

Eventually, although not right away since I've enough to keep me occupied right now as it is.

I do find it funny however that whenever a new Total War game comes out everyone seems to think it's a new low for the franchise and how every consecutive installment is somehow worse than anything before. People hated Medieval for taking away the 'super units' and fun cinematic from Shogun. When Rome: Total War came out everyone said the move to 3D was crap, and yet now those same people hail it as some sort of divine creation and refuse to hear it called anything less than heavenly. When Medieval 2 came out it was 'the ultimate sellout' and a 'cheap cash in', and yet now it's hailed as another highpoint in the series. I wonder what people will be saying about Empire a game or two from now...

And don't even get me started on the AI. People complain about Empire's AI and say it's worse than Romes.... seriously? Am I the only one who remembers entire armies marching to their deaths when faced with a river in Rome? Archers shooting their own allies in the backs? Soldiers refusing to move when ordered, and AI completely incapable of sieging a fortress nevermind doing even the most absolute basics of diplomacy on the campaign map? That's not to excuse Empire, but seriously, take of the rose-tinted goggles and give Creative Assembly a chance here. Given time and effort they've always turned their games around and made them fan-favorites, even if it always seems to take another entry in the series for people to realize it.

Well, I can't speak for these hypothetical "everyone" you reffer to in your post, but personally I find Empire to be a lowpoint in the series not because of the design decisions, but due to the overall poor quality of the game, and that's what I've heard the hypothetical "everyone" complain about. Even if you ignore the features that were added/removed from the game, the very fact that the initial release was terribly unstable and borderline unplayable is a large issue in itself.

As for the AI, the problem isn't so much that it's worse, but rather that it hasn't improved while the game mechanics have changed. Let's look at some of the AI blunders from earlier Total War games you mentioned: AI shooting friendly units? Check (both your units and enemy units suffer from this). Soldiers ignoring orders? Check. AI incapable of performing sieges? Check (it runs one very simple script for every siege, and it's not even a good one). AI incapable of proper diplomacy on the campaign map? Check!

The AI hasn't made ANY progress since the earlier games, but the game itself has gotten more complex. The result is that the AI comes off as retarded. And that's before we take a look at it on its own, in which case it's simply inexcuseable to make such a piss-poor AI in what is basically a single-player game.

Give CA a chance? What further chance should they be "given"? They are about to put out the first expansion to a game that they haven't even come close to fixing. This isn't a matter of rose-tinted goggles, it's a matter of customers being baffled by the constant faliure on the part of CA to adress a major issue in all their games (AI) to the point where the issue is getting worse and worse with each subsequent release.

I like Empire's game mechanics. I like the flow of combat. What I don't like is the AI being unable to make any sort of rational decisions and compensating by either getting large passive bonuses (harder battle difficulties) or blatantly treating the player differently than other AI opponents (harder campaign difficulties). This means I get to pick between an easy game or a game with fake difficulty...

 

[The Madman]

Even if you ignore the features that were added/removed from the game, the very fact that the initial release was terribly unstable and borderline unplayable is a large issue in itself.

I found it perfectly playable out of the box. There were some slowdown issues and the AI was certainly flawed, but neither I now anyone I know who owns the game experienced anything which I would define 'borderline unplayable'. In fact it was more stable than I was expecting with Creative Assembly's track record. Didn't crash once!

The AI hasn't made ANY progress since the earlier games, but the game itself has gotten more complex. The result is that the AI comes off as retarded. And that's before we take a look at it on its own, in which case it's simply inexcuseable to make such a piss-poor AI in what is basically a single-player game.

It *has* improved, and has continued to improve with every patch and with the multitude of mods which have been released since the game initially came out. Were and are there still flaws? Tons. But nothing nearly as game breaking as you seem to be making it sound. The Siege AI for example was basic, but it worked which is more than could be said for either Rome or Medieval 2. And since the initial release the AI has only been improved as well.

AI has always been the achilles heel of the Total War series, and when you consider just how much even a basic match has to take into account that's no big surprise. But while disappointing at times, again, it's hardly game breaking. I remember how in Rome the trick to winning was just luring the enemy general into a spear wall and it'd fall for it every time. Was it silly? Sure. But I'll be damned if I didn't enjoy doing it.

Give CA a chance? What further chance should they be "given"? They are about to put out the first expansion to a game that they haven't even come close to fixing. This isn't a matter of rose-tinted goggles, it's a matter of customers being baffled by the constant faliure on the part of CA to adress a major issue in all their games (AI) to the point where the issue is getting worse and worse with each subsequent release.

And there ya go, the proverbial 'worse with every game' example. If you honestly think Empire's out-of-the-box AI is worse than Romes or any other Total War games you're mistaken. It's only after time, patches, and expansions that the previous games came to be the well loved games they are now. Which is exactly what I mean when I say they should be given a chance; with each previous game the complaints were almost the exact same but Creative Assembly came through and the only reason to think they wont do the same this time seems like bitter cynicism to me.

I also notice you said 'Now they are dumbing the whole thing down even further and packaging it off as a series of mini-campaigns instead of fixing the original game and/or providing a decent campaign experience.' above, to which I can only reply "So you hated the Kingdoms expansion as well? Because it was a series of mini-campaigns, and you know what? I loved it. Plus if anything they're only increasing the complexity with such ideas as army fatigue and supply lines to try and simulate the problems Napoleon faced conquering Europe."

But then it seems I'm a glowing rainbow of cheerful optimism so take my opinions for just that: an opinion.

 

[oliveira8]

And there ya go, the proverbial 'worse with every game' example. If you honestly think Empire's out-of-the-box AI is worse than Romes or any other Total War games you're mistaken. It's only after time, patches, and expansions that the previous games came to be the well loved games they are now. Which is exactly what I mean when I say they should be given a chance; with each previous game the complaints were almost the exact same but Creative Assembly came through and the only reason to think they wont do the same this time seems like bitter cynicism to me.

I also notice you said 'Now they are dumbing the whole thing down even further and packaging it off as a series of mini-campaigns instead of fixing the original game and/or providing a decent campaign experience.' above, to which I can only reply "So you hated the Kingdoms expansion as well? Because it was a series of mini-campaigns, and you know what? I loved it. Plus if anything they're only increasing the complexity with such ideas as army fatigue and supply lines to try and simulate the problems Napoleon faced conquering Europe."

But then it seems I'm a glowing rainbow of cheerful optimism so take my opinions for just that: an opinion.

The new features are cool. Winter attrition, supply lines and such. Would be nice if they released a *real* Empire expansion that added that stuff to the main game.

Also the Multiplayer Campaign beta as already started.

 

[Jandau]

*snip*

Well, opinions are just that, opinions.

For me the initial release was unplayable due to constant and inexplicable crashing, going as far as me giving up due to four crashes on the same turn during the second Tutorial mission. And that's on top of various other bugs. The game has become more stable since the initial release and most gameplay bugs seem to have been squashed, but putting out such a game in the first place is unprofessional if you ask me...

And the AI HAS been getting worse. As I stated, the games have changed and become more complex, but the AI has stagnated. The net result is that the AI seems even more clumsy than in the previous games. In M2, it was at least somewhat competent. It flanked, it used ranged units rationally and worked to counter yours. At the moment, the best I can hope for in Empire is the AI forming a straight line and marching forward. His cavalry will hardly ever flank, opting rather to die by charging into square formation line infantry.

As for the siege AI, the one in M2 was straighforward, but at least it had a basic procedure that wasn't too bad. It used all the siege equipment adequately and would at least overwhelm you. The siege AI in Empire would be IMPROVED if it went for a head-on attack. As it stands, it'll spend half the battle running around your walls getting shot up only to try scaling the walls at the exact same spot every time. And that's before we get to the fact that many sieges can be repelled with 1-2 units of Demi-canons and canister shot.

The campaign AI is inexcuseably bad. The initial release couldn even launch amphibious assaults. This is something I distinctly remember M2:TW AI doing at release. Even when they "patched" it, the invasions amount to basically trying to take over an island once in a blue moon. The AI is still incapable of launching an invasion of the British isles or a naval invasion of India (the English invasion in Maratha campaign is a scripted one-time thing). Diplomacy AI has never been worse, to the point of total frustration. And this is the Total War game with the biggest focus on diplomacy...

There is no excuse for the sloppy work they did with the AI, even if we ignore the rest of the series.

The worst part is that I actually like what they did with the game itself. I like the research tree, the new government/minister system, population divided into classes, minor towns housing resource buildings, expanded trading model, etc. There's tons of good work and great ideas in there that make me want to play the game. But the exprience itself is often short due to the atrocious AI...

As for me liking Kingdoms - I didn't. I didn't hate it, but I didn't like it much either, due to small scale, limited options and such. But do you know what I hated? The Alexander expansion for Rome. And from what I've seen, Napoleon is likely to be more like Alexander than Kingdoms...

 

[Downfall89]

Creative Assembly straddled the line of trust with Medieval 2. But they fixed it up nicely, it still isn't a perfect game but the patches at least made it feel solid enough that it is an enjoyable experience anyway.
Then along came Empire. It was released in what can best be described as a pre-beta stage. The bugs were numerous, gamebreaking and often so obvious and occured on so many systems that you'd think that even a five hour beta-test would have seen most of them coming. She was patched a few times, but Empire is still a buggy mess that at best is barely playable and at worst has you tearing your hair because of all the bugs and the flimsy AI.

Creative Assembly has lost my trust and even if Napolean might have fixed many of the bugs that plagued Empire, I will not buy it. Between Napolean and Heavy Rain, this time I am taking my chance with the modern french visionaries.

I bought Empire: Total War. It has been fully patched (version 1.5) for quite a while. I've never had any crash-to-desktop's or horrible bugs. I did however have some half minor graphical bugs on the campaign map, and the AI is still retarded at best, but it is a good game. I mean - come on, it's colonial man.