StarDestroyer.Net BBS

With the merchants removed from the game, the diplomats followed. Diplomacy is now controlled through a single interface that lets you negotiate with other nations any time you want. You no longer need to dispatch a diplomat in order to talk to another country. And with so many interactions going on at once and so much distance between the nations involved, it's a welcome change. Unfortunately, as convenient as the whole affair is, there are still some options that are missing and some strange balance issues. For one thing, it seems that your own success inspires other nations to hate you, and I've found that it's harder to make friends when I'm doing well than it is when I've got my back against the wall. Secondly, the AI never really comes back with a counterproposal when they reject an offer, so players aren't ever really going to be sure what they need to do to sweeten the pot.

ray245 wrote:The British secretly backing and throwing money for a war in mainland Europe? A British conspiracy? Awesome!

Darth Wong wrote:I played the demo long enough to realize that I have no business commanding a fleet of sailing ships

Hopefully I will improve.

weemadando wrote:All the lead-up to this has made me more and more keen.

And Vympel - even if they break the street date, isn't it still a Steam activation req'd? And anyway - Steam has it at 9 hours away.

I really, really cannot wait for this. Finally the setting that I've been after. Now I just need 2 expansions - 1 to bring in the Napoleonic and the second to give me Sharpe.

Multiplayer campaign and by multi they mean 2. Pity. I guess that's the expansion again?

atg wrote:Does anyone know what happended to being able to pre-download the game on Steam? I had heard that we were going to be able to start the download 48hrs in advance, but my Steam client is saying I can't download for another 6 hours, or when its released anyway.

ray245 wrote:

atg wrote:Does anyone know what happended to being able to pre-download the game on Steam? I had heard that we were going to be able to start the download 48hrs in advance, but my Steam client is saying I can't download for another 6 hours, or when its released anyway.

There are too many people who pre-ordered it, which makes steam nervous that its servers will crash.

Vympel wrote:

For one thing, it seems that your own success inspires other nations to hate you, and I've found that it's harder to make friends when I'm doing well than it is when I've got my back against the wall. Secondly, the AI never really comes back with a counterproposal when they reject an offer, so players aren't ever really going to be sure what they need to do to sweeten the pot.

Ubiquitous wrote: I am going to wait a week or two and read this thread before deciding whether to buy it.

wautd wrote:I'll buy it regardless of the scores or reviews it gets. It's a Total War game after all. It's not like there are many games of this type on the market, and the best alternatives are older Total War games. The only other somewhat recent non-TW alternative I can think of was Imperial Glory and that was mediocre at best.

Hell, even if it sucks you could still rely on its excellent modding community

I'm hoping this arvo Vympel will play through a campaign and be able to say 'is/is not hopeless ai' and 'is/is not significant bugs'.

ray245 wrote:I think this AAR published by CA does give us some insight concerning how the AI will perform in the campaign map.

http://shoguntotalwar.yuku.com/topic/44 ... eport.html

The British secretly backing and throwing money for a war in mainland Europe? A British conspiracy? Awesome!

Gremmi asks: As your advert appears to look like Sean Bean, can we look forward to any hero units 'inspired' by fiction? Say, a Lieutenant Sharpe and the 95th Rifles, or Captain Jack Aubrey aboard a capital ship?

Kieran Brigden: Haha! The Sean Bean figure! Yes, I think he's been given that nickname internally too, although that was never the intention during design. I don't want to spoil it but there are various historical, fictional and indeed 'Easter egg' figures who pop up at certain times, in certain regions and with certain factions.

CmdrWilkens wrote:Reading that it does sound like the diplomacy model makes a bit more sense but I'm gonna wait a bit and see...mostly ebcause i just got my ass re-addicted to LOTRO.

FornicatingBaboon asks: What sort of process is involved when deciding on issues of realism versus game balance?

Kieran Brigden: Good question. It's what works regarding gameplay. Some historical tactics might be fun (line formations and demasting for example) and others are difficult and annoying (tacking, which got dropped). It's about what's fun and realistic; if we can't make it functional and fun it doesnt make it.