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I sort of liked Empire, if only for the enlightenment period and naval warfare, but I was really disappointed in the animations. Troops moving around/fighting/charging felt really floaty, as if they were walking on ice, and every time I saw my cavalry charge a formation instead of a meaty crunch they just slid the enemy infantry around. Coming from medieval 2, that felt really disappointing; in MTW 2 the units felt like they had mass and combat felt impactful but in the ETW engine it just felt like massless floaty polygons that just played preplanned animations. Shogun 2 didn't improve the engine much either, in that respect.
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Jun 15, 2012 16:11
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Basically, Empire was the beta version of the engine CA uses now. They will happily sell you beta version of its products with no qualms at all. It still boggles my mind why they haven't opened the engine up for modding for the community too. I see bargain bin sold out software style discs of the thing at the local super market. At least let modders fudge the AI to a decent state and expand the continents already!
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Jun 15, 2012 16:14
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CA's business plan for the last 20 years has been to make 2 games on each game engine, each with an expansion. Work on the next generation game begins at the same time as the second game on the 'current' engine. Shogun > Mongol Invasion > Medieval > Viking Invasion then Rome > Barbarian Invasion > Medieval 2 > Kingdoms (with Alexander being the first foray into DLC) Napoleon was the first time that the expansion was released as a standalone game, and CA have gone all-out on producing additional content for Shogun 2, but broadly they've been running the same iteration. Empire had serious AI issues but the fact that later games are much better is really just indicative of CA getting to grips with the tools they've produced.
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Jun 15, 2012 17:15
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So guys who tried Napoleon this weekend whats your thoughts on it so far?
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Jun 17, 2012 17:59
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I'd advise against buying NTW now. The Summer Sale is soon and it's been 75% off before I'm sure. http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-05-30-exclusive-total-war-announcement-at-rezzed Next Total War announcement on July 6th 
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Jun 17, 2012 18:10
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SeanBeansShako posted:Speaking of Empire, I'm an idiot who can never seem to get a UK game right. I always seem to get bogged down fighting in North American against the obnoxiously early revolting colonies and then out teched with my Navy against France and Spain. In my UK game, I made two colonial armies. The first went up north and used a sloop to take all of the Native territories before sweeping south, while the other went ans smashed the Pirates. I then got into an early war against Spain thanks to them declaring war on an ally, and snapped up all of their islands and their sweet, sweet trade goods. Between this and pumping out as many trade ships as possible, I was rolling in cash and able to swap some workshops for schools, then tech-rushed to get 2nd-rates and used them to crush the French and Spainish navy. After that it was just a case of wrapping up America and invading the mainland. Also, any tips for a 1-star NTW player to not get kicked from multiplayer lobbies by drooling retards?
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Jun 17, 2012 18:55
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SeanBeansShako posted:I personally believe CA actually is starting to see Paradox as some sort of threat, considering their game sales aren't slowing down anytime soon and the latest Crusader Kings appears to quite a bit hit. How long now before somebody in Paradox throws up a decent looking battle engine likes theirs in the next Europa or Victoria? As long as Paradox keeps the pausable real-time gameplay (and why wouldn't they? It's perfect for their games) there will never, ever be playable battles in any of their games.
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Jun 17, 2012 19:38
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John Charity Spring posted:As long as Paradox keeps the pausable real-time gameplay (and why wouldn't they? It's perfect for their games) there will never, ever be playable battles in any of their games.
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Jun 17, 2012 19:51
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John Charity Spring posted:As long as Paradox keeps the pausable real-time gameplay (and why wouldn't they? It's perfect for their games) there will never, ever be playable battles in any of their games. I disagree, I think they should do what Total War did before they went full 3D and embrace a sprite style early TW battle engine. As for NW multiplayer tips, sort out a battle with some goons in the group maybe?
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Jun 17, 2012 20:42
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Shorter Than Some posted:I agree, but I would like to see a better fleshed out combat system. Not sure in what way exactly though. It depends entirely what game we're talking about, Paradox treat each game not just as a different time period but as a completely different game focus. Crusader Kings is about characters and dynasties. Europa is about colonialism. Victoria is about economies and imperialism. Hearts of Iron is about WW2 and is the only game that's actually focused on war. For CK what they need is for Martial skill to have much more of an effect on combat than being a percentage modifier on attack - brilliant generals should be able to pull off victories against larger opponents... every so often. But no, they should never try and do a real time battle engine. It would be lovely and terrible and completely detract from what the main point of the game is, which is large-scale strategy. Don't forget that in the original Shogun the risk-map was just thrown together as a way of getting the game to generate tactical battles for the player and little more than that. CA were surprised by the fact that people actually liked playing just on the Risk map and have gradually adapted to that, but even many games later, Shogun 2's strategy game is a shadow of what Paradox produce. SeanBeansShako is asking Paradox to go through the same process in reverse and it would be a God-awful mistake.
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Jun 17, 2012 21:20
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SeanBeansShako posted:I disagree, I think they should do what Total War did before they went full 3D and embrace a sprite style early TW battle engine. It's pretty much mechanically impossible, though. They'd have to abandon the pausable-real-time-with-loads-of-simultaneous-abstracted-battles-possible thing.
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Jun 17, 2012 21:44
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John Charity Spring posted:It's pretty much mechanically impossible, though. They'd have to abandon the pausable-real-time-with-loads-of-simultaneous-abstracted-battles-possible thing. I do agree that it's not going to happen any time soon, but because they'd have to basically hire another studio to do the engine; Paradox Development is made of what, twelve guys?
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Jun 18, 2012 01:27
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I consider it like Football Manager. Like Paradox games, what you do before the season (war) and the games (battles) is more important than playing them yourself. The wins and losses are the result of your managing actions. Having the player play battles will let them cheese the AI or exploit it to make heroic victories time and time again like Total war (let's face it, even the most recent "spectacular AI!" of Total War games are dumb as poo poo and in Napoleon you can win most battles by just making a standard firing line and let the enemy come at you like Visigoths). The games are good as they are right now, you can play amazing games with mediocre pcs, they're not big on the disk and they usually have affordable prices because Paradox isn't bleeding money on newer and newer graphics.
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Jun 18, 2012 02:17
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I'd much rather have the Total War games continue to improve their campaign mode rather than see Paradox try and implement real time battles.
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Jun 18, 2012 02:43
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Flippycunt posted:I'd much rather have the Total War games continue to improve their campaign mode rather than see Paradox try and implement real time battles. We'll see what July holds for us. I've not exactly got my fingers crossed though for a renaissance at CA.
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Jun 18, 2012 03:16
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SeanBeansShako posted:Basically, Empire was the beta version of the engine CA uses now. They will happily sell you beta version of its products with no qualms at all. I haven't really kept tabs on TW games since Empire (because the time period didn't entice me), only checked this thread because I just got bit by the Third Age: Total War bug, and man, what little I knew of Shogun 2 ("RPG elements, naval battles, hardcore mode, and the AI is a little less dumb") had me hankering for a good fantasy overhaul mod for it.
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Jun 18, 2012 03:30
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I think Shogun 2's engine is now a completely a different beast to Empires. Empire was like the beta prototype of it.
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Jun 18, 2012 03:32
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SeanBeansShako posted:We'll see what July holds for us. I've not exactly got my fingers crossed though for a renaissance at CA. I don't think that CA really needs a renaissance though. The improvements between Napolean and Shogun 2 (especially with Fall of the Samurai) demonstrate a consistent improvement and refinement of the games. Now it's obvious that CA work on the game as the first priority and historical accuracy as something that's a distant second. I don't really mind that, although it's more important to some people. I would hazard a guess that we are about to see Rome 2. The addition of ramming into Fall of the Samurai really looks like a way to bring naval combat into an interesting battle experience (note that none of the "ancient" games short of Shogun 2 have had naval battles) without cannons. I agree that the battle AI could use some work, but it does it's job competently with occasional flashes of brilliance. If anything, it's often let down by the strategic AI not giving it all the tools or a coherent force in order for it to be able to perform at it's best. Ideally it would be more intelligent so that they could tone down the "cheating" that the computer gets on the harder difficulty levels, which I feel should be more balanced around taking away the player's omnipotent tools (like forcing Battle Realism mode) rather than giving the AI endless hordes. Of course, if the Realm Divide wasn't quite so "gamey" this wouldn't be that much of a problem. Fall of the Samurai is good for this, as your allies endless hordes tend to create a shifting front in the war that lets you feel like you are making a key contribution rather than the older Realm Divide which left you feeling swamped and felt unfair and arbitrary.
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Jun 18, 2012 03:56
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All I really want is Napoleon: Total War with Empires map, and a FoTS/RoTS faction system so that the major powers can drawn the smaller countries into their sphere. I would play that until the end of time.
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Jun 18, 2012 04:05
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Latin Pheonix posted:I sort of liked Empire, if only for the enlightenment period and naval warfare, but I was really disappointed in the animations. Troops moving around/fighting/charging felt really floaty, as if they were walking on ice, and every time I saw my cavalry charge a formation instead of a meaty crunch they just slid the enemy infantry around. Coming from medieval 2, that felt really disappointing; in MTW 2 the units felt like they had mass and combat felt impactful but in the ETW engine it just felt like massless floaty polygons that just played preplanned animations. Shogun 2 didn't improve the engine much either, in that respect. Even Shogun 2 infantry charges are unsatisfying and awkward; men tend to clump in odd ways, and some men will just sort of run into each other without seeming to engage in any sort of combat.
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Jun 18, 2012 04:43
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SeanBeansShako posted:Nothing is as satisfying as getting an Assassin to top tier though and doing a little 'cleaning' of foreign investors. The most fun I ever had in a TW game was Medieval 2 playing as the Danes. I topped out a mega-assassin (who had already started with several traits out of the gate), took him to Rome, and assassinated 3 popes in a row until they picked my guy. Then it was on to crusade against those excommunicated British  A Rome 2 about the collapse or a Medieval 3 about post-Mongol Eurasia with the Shogun 2 gameplay would be the bossest thing in the entire world.
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Jun 18, 2012 04:52
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Sorry if this is the wrong thread, but this is the latest TW thread I could find and I guess you guys know about the other games too! I'm gonna start playing Rome because Romans are awesome and the History of Rome podcast made me long for some sweet action. I remember last time I played that squalor was pretty broken, and any pop increasing building was a mistake etc. I remember I found a patch that kinda fixed that, but I can't find it again. Any other mods that are good?
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Jun 18, 2012 09:02
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Don't bother with minor vanilla fixes, especially if you're at all interested in the historical aspect of the game. https://www.europabarbarorum.com There are other great mods for R:TW and maybe there will be goons who can vouch for them, but this is the one I can personally swear by. Dumped countless hours both on having fun playing the game and on learning all the historical detail that is built into the mod.
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Jun 18, 2012 09:24
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I already auto-resolve battles in TW unless the RNG is being retarded/this is must-win and I need to do it myself. Paradox should play to their strengths and not mess with the good thing they have.
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Jun 18, 2012 09:29
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Just got back to Shogun 2 after a few months break. Have they balanced the mixed avatar battles yet? I haven't had any success against modern armies with a samurai army, though I'm disappointed that I had one fair battle and I screwed it up. Someone was playing a fully traditional army, but I presumed to be facing a lot of rifles so I changed my army composition to include more cavalry than I'm skilled with  Also, is there any documentation on all the different leader descriptions? Most of them are pretty self explanatory, but I just saw someone who only had the title 'Dishonourable Coward'. I presume he earned that by ragequitting a lot.
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Jun 18, 2012 09:41
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So I started up an old game of Stainless Steel I had on the backburner again, and I have to say, while there's a ton of things I like about Medieval 2 that later games don't really have (wacky general traits, amusing pre-battle speeches, the pomp and feel of the period, the way units are visually upgraded with each armor upgrade, the early Renaissance period, etc. etc.), holy god I do NOT miss the agent micromanagement or the reinforcement system. I'm personally pushing for CA devoting their next game to the pike-and-shot era, but I would happily accept M:TW3 if it means that I can get my Reich on without dealing with like thirty agents every goddamn turn.
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Jun 18, 2012 13:55
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The ease of Shogun diplomacy has me spoiled. gently caress dragging diplomats everywhere; gently caress that stupid mechanic.
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Jun 18, 2012 13:57
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NihilCredo posted:Don't bother with minor vanilla fixes, especially if you're at all interested in the historical aspect of the game. Don't get Rome Total Realism too. Seriously (dear god!). Anyone have any clue what they did with the latest NTW update wise?
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Jun 18, 2012 14:48
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New unit DLC. It has a bunch of units which only came with certain retailers, and also two new ones. It doesn't have any of the Imperial Edition units, which is a shame. Anyway this might get me to finally finish my Russian campaign. Anyone who thinks Britain is too easy in that game should try Russia. VVV Huh, "Heroes of the Napoleonic Wars" is on Steam but it's not listed as DLC for Napoleon. I always thought it was weird they released some unit DLC but apparently held those back. Anyway, thanks! Kazzah fucked around with this message at 15:59 on Jun 18, 2012 |
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Jun 18, 2012 15:24
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Heroes of the Napoleonic Wars ARE the units of the Imperial Edition FYI.
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Jun 18, 2012 15:33
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SeanBeansShako posted:Don't get Rome Total Realism too. Seriously (dear god!). What was so bad about that mod? I want to play some mods for both RTW and MTW2. What is the best one for mass conflict? Is there a EB version of MTW2?
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Jun 18, 2012 15:43
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I think RTR's problem is feature bloat.
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Jun 18, 2012 15:45
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What's the difference about reinforcements you guys keep talking about?
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Jun 18, 2012 16:33
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Mans posted:What's the difference about reinforcements you guys keep talking about? Pre-NTW the only way you could reinforce a depleted unit was 'merge' them with another type at the cost of their experince. Your Generals could pick up skills and ancilliaries than would give you more injuries than deaths in battles but if a solid unit of yours was hit bad merging, disbanding or sending them to guard a favoured city were your only options. In NTW a proper system of supply and attrition was introduced. In friendly territory your units automatically reinforce themselves and you can build structures to speed this up as well like warehouses. You can still merge I think and lose experince if you are desperate for a reinforced unit.
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Jun 18, 2012 16:38
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Mans posted:What's the difference about reinforcements you guys keep talking about? In Medieval 2 and the earlier games, you have to move depleted units into a castle or town to replenish the unit (which then takes a turn and costs money). The castle or town needs to be able to train that type of unit, or you can't replenish. This meant that if your super-elite unit of badass knights took losses far away from your most developed castle, you might have to move them all the way back to reinforce them. In the newer games, units slowly replenish automatically when within one of your (or your ally's, I think) territories, even if they're not within the actual town. peer fucked around with this message at 16:42 on Jun 18, 2012 |
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Jun 18, 2012 16:39
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Going into enemy territory not only slows your guys down the replenishment speed is decreased slightly. Unless winter hits then your going to lose guys to it too. Got to plan your movements and upgrades now!
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Jun 18, 2012 16:42
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peer posted:In Medieval 2 and the earlier games, you have to move depleted units into a castle or town to replenish the unit (which then takes a turn and costs money). The castle or town needs to be able to train that type of unit, or you can't replenish. This meant that if your super-elite unit of badass knights took losses far away from your most developed castle, you might have to move them all the way back to reinforce them. I remember having to get around that by having several stacks of reinforcements following my main army around. Got pretty ridiculous towards the mid-game, and quickly sapped my will to complete the campaign. Since General units auto-reinforce anyway, is it possible for modders to add it in, or is it hard-coded? NihilCredo posted:Don't bother with minor vanilla fixes, especially if you're at all interested in the historical aspect of the game. My personal favourite Rome mod is Roma Surrectum. Bit of a pain in the arse to install, and has a fair bit of feature bloat, but my god there is no better mod for giant battles. 0-turn recruitment for non-elite units means you and the AI can easily have huge armies all over the place, and the age of the engine means even older systems can run multi-army battles with ease. MadJackMcJack fucked around with this message at 17:52 on Jun 18, 2012 |
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Jun 18, 2012 17:36
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It's theoretically possible to simply make every unit have a general. You get the problem of every unit card being someone's face, though. I think there's a maximum unit size for general units as well.
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Jun 18, 2012 17:39
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Which mods would you recommend for Napoleon? I want to play as a small nation, but tweak vanilla a bit. How does the Napoleon: All in One Mod fair out?
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Jun 18, 2012 22:27
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Oh hey, just had a nice ragequit over this so I'm left wondering: Did later games fix that wonderful AI behaviour where one of your units (usually cavalry) gets a clear order to quickly move away, but they decide to all stick around loitering like an overbearing girlfriend because one soldier (usually in the corner of the formation) is still entangled in combat?
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Jun 19, 2012 00:08
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