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Lemon Curdistan posted:Yes. Creative Assembly are notoriously lazy when it comes to AI programming and this is their response to having AI that's too dumb to compete with human players. I wouldn't mind as much if they would at least make sure that the AI was subject to the ingame mechanics. I mean, sure go ahead and insta-build a barracks, and give them extra troops in a unit, but don't just raise armies out of the ground. When the AI just completely ignores things like trade or infrastructure, it's hard to take the game seriously. Even if you can't code a good computer opponent, make sure to go through the motions of justifying the cheating.
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# ¿ Feb 24, 2013 11:45 |
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# ¿ May 17, 2024 01:39 |
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Koramei posted:Yeah, people often seem to miss that. The Total War AI could certainly be improved, and in Empire it was pretty inexcusable, but for most of the series it's really not that bad, all things considered. Like, the only RTS ever with AI that doesn't obviously cheat is Starcraft 2, and that was in development for like 10 years by the wealthiest game studio ever. The Starcraft 2 VI actually does cheat at the "insane" difficulty level (it has 40% increased income and omniscience), and its micro abilities can become rather inhumanly quick at the "hard"/"very hard" difficulties.
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# ¿ Feb 25, 2013 07:27 |
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Sleep of Bronze posted:Otherwise, definitely loving the rolling fireballs. Wonder if their inclusion as a setpiece in that trailer means anything for the actual game (whether for the Historic Battle of Teutoburg Forest which I assume they'll be including or as a generic equipment piece/unit ability). Or it could just be in there to look sweet, I'm fine with that too. It's a reference to the film "Centurion". The actual battle didn't have them (they're only good for scaring people, and Romans wouldn't give a poo poo). It might be in the game though, since CA is pretty willing to get ahistorical. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Zba6lg1Z9Y
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# ¿ Feb 28, 2013 19:59 |
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SeanBeansShako posted:They seem to forget the fact that these battles took days because thousands of guys constantly fought, fell back, attempted to reclaim and finally rout or win the battlefield. It is impossible to pull off such a scale with the TW engine, so they do the silly thing like turn that morale insanely high and double the unit count by two hundred. You're talking about a mod that has elves fighting orcs. They want epic battles, not realistic ones. And morale is increased in most TW mods because of gameplay reasons: It's far too easy to rout an entire army with good positioning and combined attacks. Creative Assembly puts the morale down because a new player doesn't know how to exploit the AI. And as far as realism goes - troop discipline has been quite variable throughout history; there's the disorganized peasant bands that don't want to fight in the first place, and then there's the Sacred Band of Thebes that died to a man in spite of unassailable odds when fighting the Macedonians. Kaal fucked around with this message at 17:55 on Mar 8, 2013 |
# ¿ Mar 8, 2013 17:50 |
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SeanBeansShako posted:Waiting for fifteen minutes for a units morale to break with only 20 dudes and barely any ammunition is tedious, these people are wrong dammit. And I meant the whole modding scene not just a specific mod. If you're having to wait fifteen minutes while units hammer it out, then you need to skirmish and flank more effectively.
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# ¿ Mar 8, 2013 18:08 |
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Panzeh posted:Basically we want the game to play in slow motion for babies who can't handle TW games. That's what a lot of mods are. Low morale makes it easier to play because the AI is terrible at managing morale.
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# ¿ Mar 8, 2013 18:29 |
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Koramei posted:High morale might just be to your taste; some people do like it, otherwise it wouldn't be so prevalent in mods. It's just particularly hilarious because most of the mods pride themselves on heightening the accuracy and then do stupid stuff to battles because of the modders' sense of fun, which is sort of why things aren't completely accurate in TW in the first place. In reality, morale in the vanilla games is much higher than it would be for conscripted armies historically. The high morale of the Romans was one of their strongest points, and it's probably still too high in TW. Placement of the levies to prevent them from legging it as soon as the fighting started was one of the most important things for an ancient general to consider The vanilla RTW game has most units breaking nearly immediately. There is nothing realistic about that. Europa Barbarorum put the unit morale up quite a bit, and for good reason. Non-roman armies were not the kind of useless red shirts that we portray in our films. And units can still be broken very quickly in EB, I routinely cause much larger armies to flee (and be cut down) simply by positioning my army on a hill. If anyone is having problems with unit morale in a realistic mod (as opposed to TATW where some units are simply incapable of breaking), they probably just aren't doing it right. Morale is the AI's biggest weakness, and it's the principal difference between the tactical difficulty levels. Place your forces in a position of strength, soften up your enemy with ranged weapons, flank them with your cavalry, rout their weaker units, allow that rout to spread through their forces, and avoid surrounding the enemy or attacking them in a city's central square where they will fight to the death. You can also cause major morale penalties by killing their general, making them tired, or having overwhelming force. Kaal fucked around with this message at 14:41 on Mar 9, 2013 |
# ¿ Mar 9, 2013 14:00 |
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Koramei posted:but surely killing off most of the enemy rather than having them get away makes me better at the game! Hah yeah, except for RTW allows cavalry to absolutely devastate routing enemies, which makes for the kind of lopsided battles where you suffer 120 casualties and inflict 2000, despite being heavily outnumbered and having basic units. It's kind of ridiculous, and I agree with you that it'd be nice if they could turn and reform quicker. As it is, they practically walk off the field before they're willing to reform, which makes it very easy for a single cavalry unit to stay on the heels of an entire routing army. Mans posted:That will be actually inches further away from the actual position they were used in Your cavalry probably isn't actually charging if they are getting bogged down. It should make a trumpet sound and the archers should go flying - morale or no. Make sure they are far enough away to start a charge, but not so far away that they are exhausted when they hit. And then pull them away after the charge is complete, rather than engaging in a general melee. Horses are terrible at that sort of thing, so just prepare them for another charge. In EB, most archers will break after one or two charges, largely dependent on whether they are close to allies or not. Kaal fucked around with this message at 02:41 on Mar 10, 2013 |
# ¿ Mar 10, 2013 02:28 |
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Alchenar posted:The problem fundamentally is that CA have to try to balance the need for 'authenticity' in battles with the need to produce battles that can be played in 15-20 minutes in one go without saving. That necessarily produces a whole set of conditions on scale, pacing, lethality, etc. The three engines they've produced so far have gotten better and better at squeezing more authenticity while keeping to that 15-20 minute playability window, it'll be interesting to see what emerges with Rome 2. Oh totally, but EB doesn't have that limitation so I wish they had been able to go in and change that aspect of tactical play. I shouldn't be able to rout an army and then send in my general to single-handedly kill 1500 people. Really I'd prefer if the entire rout mechanic is reworked in R2TW, because it's pretty clunky.
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# ¿ Mar 10, 2013 18:36 |
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Koramei posted:In RTW dudes on the walls will often fight to the last man, which may just be because of pathfinding bugs but it still makes more sense. This is just an aside, but this shouldn't be happening either. Walls strengthen the resolve of enemies, but I routinely chase units off the walls and slaughter them in the streets. I think that what's happening for you is that your archer-heavy armies are crushing the morale of your enemies, but since you never move in the rout catalyst of a melee unit, your opponents never break. If you want someone to run away, you need to chase after them a bit - not just shoot arrows at them. Try a more combined-arms approach, and make sure to put your cursor over enemy units to see what their morale and tiredness levels are like.
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# ¿ Mar 10, 2013 19:52 |
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Grand Prize Winner posted:What Empire made me wish for was a game set in the centuries just before it. Like, imagine a 1400-1699 campaign where you go from late Medieval to Renaissance pike-and-shotte to early musket infantry. I think they called that game Shogun 2: Fall of the Samurai.
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# ¿ Mar 11, 2013 05:24 |
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Odobenidae posted:I just installed Europa Barbarorum and holy poo poo what the gently caress is going on. I knew it was about realism but this looks extremely intimidating. It's really not that bad. People just get intimidated by the non-English spellings and the script. Start up with one of the easier factions like the Romani so that things will be familiar. Honestly you can pretty much just play it normally, there's only a few significant changes in re city development. Just take it slow.
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# ¿ Mar 21, 2013 18:27 |
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Athropos posted:The best Rome mod is not EB, or RTR or any of that bullshit, it's Roma Surrectum 2, which is criminally underrated and absolutely amazing. RSII is awesome if you want to play as the Romans. The other factions don't have nearly as much attention paid to them though. I plan on playing through another Roman campaign in RSII once I finished my Averni campaign in EB. Sadly you can't really install them both at the same time.
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# ¿ Mar 21, 2013 19:22 |
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SeanBeansShako posted:Speaking of RTW, What was the 'slighty more detailed and expanded content' mod for Barbarian Invasion? All of the recent mods work with BI and Alexander as well, as far as I know.
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# ¿ Mar 21, 2013 19:25 |
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canyoneer posted:Is the extra content in the Grandmaster pack worth the extra $15? Where should I start playing, being new to the series? The extra content looks fantastic, as it's essentially all the DLC for all the games (which is huge) and is definitely worth the extra money. You'd be hard-pressed to play online, or even to run most of the mods, without some of that DLC. You should start playing the Shogun 2 vanilla campaign - and I say that as someone who loves RTW - because it's the most polished game in the series. It will get you used to the concepts that the other games are based around (particularly the sword/archery/cavalry games Rome and Medieval). Then move on to playing its expansion, Fall of the Samurai, which is representative of the gun-based games (Empire and Napoleon). After that, just go ahead and see what you're interested in. There's a poo poo-ton of content in that Grandmaster Pack. Kaal fucked around with this message at 20:16 on Mar 21, 2013 |
# ¿ Mar 21, 2013 20:11 |
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Shorter Than Some posted:I really hate the non-English spellings stuff that happens in every mod. It's just confusing and makes everything harder to identify for the sake of "realism". I don't really get the rationale, why does it matter that Carthage is not how it was spelled, it's a translation, it wasn't even originally spelled with our alphabet. "Realism" gets a pretty bad rap in this thread, but half the point of mods like EB is to explore historical antiquity. Showcasing the languages is part of that. Besides the English version of the unit names are typically included in parentheses, so it's really not that difficult to identify units on the fly. But it certainly is rather intimidating when you first open up the game, which is too bad.
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# ¿ Mar 22, 2013 15:20 |
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Shorter Than Some posted:I don't actually mind all the historical extras but the language bit seems odd to me, since it strikes me as more consistant with that theme to have them fully translated, as that way we get the same experience as we would if we lived at the time (insofar as a total war game can recreate that experience at all that is). Without wanting to get too "history thread", multilingualism was very much part of antiquity. Indeed it still is in most of the world outside of the US. People might speak five different languages, and still need interpreters in order to conduct business. I think that recognizing that is good thing as it adds historical legitimacy. A certain amount of anachronism is okay: I think that it would be very off-putting if the game referred to the Celts and the Romans as the French and the Italians. On the other hand, I agree that it can be a bit overwhelming once you see a list of factions called the Averni, the Aedui, and the Romani instead - particularly when there's dozens of factions. But really you're only going to be fighting a handful of them at once. Beyond that, I think that those little tidbits of culture help to craft the setting - I like playing in a world there's more of a difference between two armies than a flag and how many standardized spearman and archers there are. Of course at the point you've kind of left the realm of pure videogaming, and entered into a degree of roleplay/simulation that some folks just aren't interested in. Kaal fucked around with this message at 17:44 on Mar 22, 2013 |
# ¿ Mar 22, 2013 17:33 |
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Electric Pope posted:While the game has a lot of time to cover, I'd rather around 4 turns per year because I like to imagine the things that happen over the course of a TW campaign as like, actual things that are actually happening in this little emergent story, and a single war that lasts 40 years and sees two generals die of old age kind of puts a damper on that. Fortunately, this will probably be trivial to mod. I couldn't care less if this means some new formation or tactic emerges 80 years before it did in real life or something. This is something that it seems extremely easy for CA to implement into the game, a la the Civilization normal/epic/marathon settings. Hopefully they will include it.
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# ¿ Mar 23, 2013 07:47 |
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Zettace posted:It's most likely due to Chinese history not being that popular in western countries (the main market for Total War games). It's also because it'd be difficult to differentiate Total War: China from Rome, Medieval, and Shogun.
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# ¿ Mar 28, 2013 01:23 |
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I think that the sieges are fine, if repetitive, but the real problem is that the autoresolve remains stuck in the 1990s. It's completely terrible and random, and relying on it is almost always a mistake. Autoresolve should represent average commanding, not absolute blundering. Fixing the autoresolve would let people skip the parts of the game that they don't like without being hugely punished for it. The developers must have a wealth of statistics from the popular Shogun 2 multiplayer - they should use that to develop an improved statistical model for autoresolve. Anything would be better than what they have now.
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# ¿ Apr 29, 2013 20:33 |
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madmac posted:The most confusing thing is that it can be hard to follow the use of attack vs damage in places now that they are different stats...It does sound like the new system puts more emphasis on armor vs damage then attack vs defense, but I could be wrong. Thanks for cross-posting this. Coming from an RPG perspective, this makes a lot of sense to me. You compare the attack vs. defense values in order to determine the hit chance, and then you compare the armor/hitpoint vs. AP/base damage values to resolve the effect of a successful strike. A unit with a high attack will land more strikes, whereas a unit with high damage will be more deadly when those strikes land. Kaal fucked around with this message at 17:12 on May 4, 2013 |
# ¿ May 4, 2013 17:06 |
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canyoneer posted:This is what I will forever think of whenever a news article bungles a "12 gauge shotgun" as a ".12 gauge shotgun". Hah, I never knew about how this worked until you mentioned it and I looked it up. Thanks! Also, Rise of the Samurai is the most under-appreciated Total War game, in that its campaign is well-balanced and interesting without being too long, and the capabilities of the AI are relatively appropriate to the capabilities of their units. Discuss.
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# ¿ Dec 28, 2014 08:57 |
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shalcar posted:No-one likes that guy with the camera. You all know the one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8COTh_ueYQc&t=964s
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# ¿ Jan 3, 2015 08:18 |
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SeanBeansShako posted:I've wondered for years what that referenced. It's actually an ongoing gag throughout the Once Upon A Time in China films. She and other well-meaning but helpless Western technophiles are constantly having to be saved by Jet Li and his squad of Traditional Chinese Patriots. The films are Jet Li at his best, check them out! Kaal fucked around with this message at 15:31 on Jan 3, 2015 |
# ¿ Jan 3, 2015 15:28 |
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Earwicker posted:Are the unit sizes likely to be smaller than in typical TW games? Maybe it will be more in the direction of Myth, which was a pretty awesome game in its time Warhammer is fairly mutable, with players using a point-buy system to command anything from an elite platoon to an entire army. And much of that is limited by the reality of actually playing so many units, with the fluff featuring the clash of multiple armies at a single time. So the unit scales should probably be the same as other TW games, but perhaps with more of an emphasis on what TW players would call "Hero Units".
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# ¿ Jan 15, 2015 18:01 |
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Grand Prize Winner posted:In my experience, military access treaties for railroad use are worthless because the AI doesn't build railroads. Has the AI changed significantly since... uhh, two years or so after release? Nope, but like he was saying: Sometimes railroads pass through regions that don't actually have stations, and you still need to have military access to those regions for that railroad segment to work.
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# ¿ Mar 28, 2015 05:47 |
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Yeah, for one thing having cool little trains going back and forth on the map is totally sweet. Completely worth it.
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# ¿ Mar 28, 2015 14:52 |
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Back To 99 posted:Merchants get you a ton of money if you park a high level guy on the other side of the map on a expensive resource. Yes, distance matters. It is a pretty boring minigame though. Yeah Merchants can be game-breakingly good if you use them correctly, but they can also be frustrating to use and deal with since they were CA's first real entry into the "fun" of agent-spam.
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# ¿ Apr 21, 2015 18:21 |
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As far as I know, routing units fight back but are unable to kill. Any losses sustained are due to friendly fire (typically from nearby ranged units, but hypothetically from collisions).
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# ¿ May 19, 2015 17:38 |
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Arcsquad12 posted:Can Empire simulate the advantages of a column over a line when marching, or when charging? It totally could, but it doesn't. All you'd need to do is tie a speed/fatigue malus to the width of the formation.
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# ¿ Jul 20, 2015 16:54 |
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Keksen posted:Thanks for the replies, guys. Ended up buying Shogun 2. Now to learn all the units since from what y'all said I'm guessing I won't get away with the time-tested strategy of "build more horse dudes." I'm still not sure what the point of some of the units (like No-Dachi Samurai) is but so far I'm having fun sucking at the game. Naval battles are total chaos for me, though. I just want my 74s back. No-Dachi Samurai are shock troops that are great for collapsing flanks and chewing through ashigaru fodder. They're basically the polar opposite of Naginata Samurai, which are defensive bulwarks that can hold a position against all comers. Katana Samurai are line units that are great both offensively and defensively against infantry, but are weak against cavalry. One of the great things about Shogun 2 is that all the units have a purpose more or less. Ashigaru are effective in numbers and are needed to bulk up armies unless you're simply overflowing with gold. Monks are great additions to armies, but are expensive and weak to bows. Even the specialist units like bomb throwers or ninjas can have their moments of glory if used appropriately. Naval battles in Shogun 2 aren't nearly as straight-forward as they are in the age of cannon, but you'll learn naval fighting techniques soon enough. Medium and Fire Bunes should constitute the core of your navy - harass with the Fire Bunes and close with the Medium Bunes when their morale weakens. Kaal fucked around with this message at 19:15 on Sep 4, 2015 |
# ¿ Sep 4, 2015 19:07 |
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Asehujiko posted:Speaking of Arena, I got a bunch of keys for it if somebody wants to see the grind and monotony first-hand: Thanks for the key!
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# ¿ Sep 5, 2015 16:50 |
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Keksen posted:So I'd use No-Dachi in a similar way to cavalry (minus the weak to spears part)? Right, in fact they're considered a fantastic counter to groups of Yari Ashigaru. They lack the mobility of cavalry of course, but have the combat strengths and staying power of infantry. Koramei posted:And for the general it depends on what skills you give them from the tree. They're not made of paper, but if you're just leveling them up in poetry and tea ceremonies then don't expect them to even fare that well 1v1 against a katana samurai, whereas if you go get melee attack and charge and unit size and stuff then they can be pretty devastating. Treat them like support units though- there are hero units farther in the tech tree that are pretty similar- while their stats will absolutely outmatch any other unit, their unit sizes are so small that they'll quickly get overwhelmed. Get them charging into shaky places to give the rest of your units support, and then out again fairly quickly; don't just throw them into frontline duty. Yep. They can be specced either way. A general that is set up to be a combat powerhouse can be pretty devastating, but then again you can set them up to buff your entire army or even your entire empire instead.
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# ¿ Sep 5, 2015 18:20 |
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Arcsquad12 posted:So if No-Dachi Samurai are your shock infantry, Naginatas would be your line anchors? In a straight up fight, how well do Naginatas fare against the main infantry cutter Katana units? Naginatas and Katanas would probably trade pretty evenly on cost, with the Naginatas having a slight edge on the field. But I'll be honest and say that I rarely rely on Naginata units specifically because they seem too specialized of a unit to me. Katana Samurais or Yari Ashigaru can generally do the defensive job 90% as effectively, and will be more effective on the attack. I really don't have that many times where I intend to let an expensive unit hold a position unaided by cavalry or archers. Multiplayer might be a different matter since you don't have to choose between building a Naginata Dojo or a Katana Dojo. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02CLp7Gj1mE
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# ¿ Sep 7, 2015 04:20 |
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The fact that there can be such a diversity of opinion about Shogun 2 unit types is precisely why people see it as the high water mark of the series.
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# ¿ Sep 7, 2015 07:29 |
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Keksen posted:While we're on campaigns, any general consensus on what the important things to research are? Going down the tree for whatever units your clan specializes in seems obvious, but other than that I'm not really sure what's worth it. Getting to Terrace Farms relatively quickly seems useful? In Empire I would just end up with all the techs researched halfway through the game but it looks like I'm gonna actually have to pick and choose in Shogun 2 (which is probably a good thing). It depends on the campaign a bit, but generally I'd say that a balanced approach is best. Food is always important, but so is having enough trade. And you can save a lot of money by using agents well. If you focus on any one thing, it's easy to find yourself really lacking in other areas. If I were to focus on anything, I'd say that there's a few techs that can really catalyze your units and ensure that you can field smaller and less expensive navies (like Way of the Bow in Shogun 2/RotS, which gives fire arrows, or Explosive Shot in FotS). Good navies means you can defend your trade routes and move your troops by sea, which in turn leads to significant standing koku generation and also permits you to pick up productive and defensible island fortresses.
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# ¿ Sep 7, 2015 22:13 |
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SickZip posted:Maybe in multiplayer there's balance and room for different opinions about the best unit. In single player, the optimal choice is yari ashigaru, more yari ashigaru, and a couple light cavalry. Literally every other option is slower and weaker. Also, most building choices are a traps and worse then useless. I loved Shogun but it's campaign is the worst in total war in terms of being prone to degenerate strategies. Considering the wide variety of disparate opinions here, it's pretty clear that there isn't one true way to play. Also, if you're playing Shogun 2 and only building Yari Ashigaru and Light Cavalry then you are playing less than optimally, since you could be building your factional specialty unit and wrecking face with them. Indeed at the very least you could be building Bow Ashigaru (not to mention navies).
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# ¿ Sep 13, 2015 09:07 |
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Arcsquad12 posted:Any good suggestions for countering late game naval invasions in Shogun 2, or managing my economy in general? The Ito have started attacking my rear provinces and my current strategy is withering them down in unwinnable siege defenses while my reserve army sweeps through reconquering the land behind them until I can meet them and rout them in a major battle. Having a big gently caress-off navy basically pays for itself, so I'd suggest starting there. It's difficult because that's expensive, I know, but once you get it going you can also support lots of trade ships and they basically can support your entire economy until the Realm Divide. And preventing naval raids is great because it really lets your home-front economy grow and saves you lots of money on rearguards and repair bills. I typically build two fleets and post them at either end of my coastline, and then perhaps some pickets within reinforcement distance to expand their reach. Any enemy ships trying to get by have to run that blockade.
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# ¿ Oct 9, 2015 04:54 |
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Blooming Brilliant posted:I've been wanting a 19th century China TW game or at least a mod for a while now, feels there's enough stuff and variety with the Taiping Rebellion and the Opium Wars for some cool factions and armies. For example, Qing Tiger Men. That looks amazing. Total War: China would be pretty fantastic, if they could pull it off. There's so much possibility there, it's almost overwhelming. I've been listening to Mike Duncan's Revolutions history podcast recently, and his coverage of the Haitian Revolution keeps reminding me of what a great Total War game it could be. You've got all these different factions, both foreign (French, British, Spanish, American) and domestic (Blacks, Whites, Coloreds, and lots of different combinations thereof under different leaders). You've got an island that is split into four or five distinct zones with unique geography and culture - endless cane fields, rugged mountains, extremely wealthy and European cities, and even Spanish hinterlands. There's a wide variety of different weapons and units possible, from machete-wielding slaves and veteran Maroon rebels, to Polish conscripts and British Redcoats. And to top it off, you've got tons of external influences and events going on - the French Revolution, economic and political changes in America and the Caribbean, the rise of Napoleon, on and off war with Britain, and of course the annual trauma of Yellow Fever. There's just so much material available. Of course the biggest problem is that not many people are familiar with Haitian history, or are interested in playing a game about it. But Total War: Caribbean would be so cool.
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# ¿ Oct 29, 2016 00:51 |
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# ¿ May 17, 2024 01:39 |
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Kenzie posted:Total War has always been such a strange series to me, due to the game devs putting an absolutely ridiculous amount of effort and work into producing these amazing and cinematic graphics and animations, with thousands of detailed 3D dudes jumping around and fighting and stabbing each other with slick motion-captured animations, but when you actually play the game, you can never even see that stuff because well, you're too busy playing the game. You're too busy zoomed out clicking on troops and ordering them around and watching your flanks to ever be able to just sit and watch the battles. Super agreed. Total War is fascinating because the way it's advertised and nominally designed is often completely at odds with how it's played. Creative Assembly would do really well to spend an entire design generation focusing on gameplay development, balanced replayability, and AI competency. The graphics are beautiful and there's a wide diversity of units/buildings/tech paths, but 9/10ths of the game is spent zoomed way out, making the same obvious upgrade choices, and seeing the AI make the same stupid mistakes over and over.
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# ¿ Sep 8, 2017 16:29 |