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I guess I'll just leave this here:

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/06 ... reenshots/

Well, looks like the 50k number is marketing bullshit indeed. I count only 2740 in the first screen with the battlefield, excluding the general, with 20 cards.

I wish they would just ditch the 20 unit limit.

So as usual their figures are "if you have several different factions on the field at once" crap, as opposed to 1 v 1.

As for the 20 unit limit, I think more is beyond the limit one person can reasonably control. Even with 20 units I often have problems keeping track of what my men are doing. In Empire, having my cavalry just sit there and get shot because they've finished a pursuit and I'm off doing something else is a constant problem for me.

If only the UI hadn't stagnated and allowed you to use subgroups and groups to reduce tiresome micro? Poor old CA.

They ought to take a page out of Company of Heroes' book and introduce some very rudimentary individual or unit AI, so you can toggle it on if you can't afford to micromanage a unit and the unit will at least try to take care of itself instead of facing into the sunset while it gets shot to pieces over and over.

Allowing groups to perform basic coordination functions alone would be nice too, to prevent having to pause and move sixteen units to right next to each other.

Stark wrote:Allowing groups to perform basic coordination functions alone would be nice too, to prevent having to pause and move sixteen units to right next to each other.

They already have that, it is just that their standard formations nearly always suck because they either do not form anything that makes sense (like infantry in front, arty on a hill and cavalry in reserve) or if they do they still do not group the most experienced/unexperienced units together to form a more efficient line.

What I mean is something contextual, like the way CoH squads work. Being able to assign a unit of troops to a group and have a bit more sophisticated control than 'use one of these 3 preset and useless formations' or 'never ever change arrangement' would be a step up.

AI behaviors would fix most of the "left them alone" idiocies of the current system. You should be able to set cavalry to look after themselves with a series of simple directives, e.g. if they come under infantry fire, they should retreat.

Vympel wrote:AI behaviors would fix most of the "left them alone" idiocies of the current system. You should be able to set cavalry to look after themselves with a series of simple directives, e.g. if they come under infantry fire, they should retreat.

They already had such a setting for skirmisher cavalry back in RTW.

Skirmishing is broken in ETW because practically all infantry is missile infantry, and a musket salvo means slaughtering 50% or more of your cavalry unit.

They should retreat before they come into musket range, but they only do if the infantry unit comes close to them. Which sucks, when you find out your expensie cav unit got shot to pieces by some stupid light infantry you missed during your wholesale slaughter of the enemy army.

Man even fucking JUTLAND has a semblance of AI-initiative. Ships will automatically dodge torpedoes and avoid collisions. Yet CA can't even make a command as simple as "don't stand there and get shot dumbshits".

I mean, SES can't even make a working user interface or command system that isn't a complete chore to use.

Even better than subroutines, how about some fucking communications? In WiC radio chatter is meaningful and actually lets you know "hey we're being shot at over here". Where's that loudmouthed advisor from M2TW telling me shit I already know? How about he tells me things like "hey our guys on the far right are about to be attacked."

Thanas wrote:

Vympel wrote:AI behaviors would fix most of the "left them alone" idiocies of the current system. You should be able to set cavalry to look after themselves with a series of simple directives, e.g. if they come under infantry fire, they should retreat.

They already had such a setting for skirmisher cavalry back in RTW.

That only kicked in when the cavalry in question was about to be charged, however. They'd happily sit there getting hit by enemy archers, artillery, and anything else as long as no one tried to directly charge them.

Man even fucking JUTLAND has a semblance of AI-initiative. Ships will automatically dodge torpedoes and avoid collisions. Yet CA can't even make a command as simple as "don't stand there and get shot dumbshits".

I mean, SES can't even make a working user interface or command system that isn't a complete chore to use.

Even better than subroutines, how about some fucking communications? In WiC radio chatter is meaningful and actually lets you know "hey we're being shot at over here". Where's that loudmouthed advisor from M2TW telling me shit I already know? How about he tells me things like "hey our guys on the far right are about to be attacked."

Considering the difference in resources between SES and CA this is a funny comparision.

Do agree with you that managing the the Grand Fleet is a real nightmare in Jutland - though i will forgive a game that lets me use dreadnoughts almost anything.....

Spoony calls Shogun 2 the best game of Day 1 of E3

He says he saw the 56,000 units, he saw combined sea / land battles, 200,000 procedurally generated generals speeches, one-on-one combat between the single-trooper 'hero' units, etc.

(starts near the end)

I dont know how the 56k will work - can some cleverer than me tell me if PC hardware is capable of rendering that number of polygons? (ok I know CA cheat and use sprites until you get close). I use Darthmod jacked up unit sizes in Empire and my fairly recent gaming rig still struggles at points in big battles

Also the screenshot of the battle seems to show unit sizes of circa 160 - 200 men and the old 20 unit maximum - I know unit sizes are scalable in CA games but I cant see how it would work!

Dude, UT3 has individual guns with millions of polys. The limitation is the efficiency of CA's engine.

Lol snort lol.

Ps lol at vympels favouite nobody seeing 200,000 speeches.

Stark wrote:Dude, UT3 has individual guns with millions of polys. The limitation is the efficiency of CA's engine.

Lol snort lol.

Ps lol at vympels favouite nobody seeing 200,000 speeches.

If the general has the option to not mention a topic, or say you are worse/about even/superior in that topic, then you need only nine topics to exceed 200,000 speeches. Fewer if he randomises the order each time. The individual comments are going to get old pretty fast...

Uh, no shit. He claims to have 'seen' 200,000 speeches. That's... what? A couple of years?

Ps lol at vympels favouite nobody seeing 200,000 speeches.

So I was being sloppy with my wording, kiss my keister.

But it was a hilarious thing. I imagined this guy watching them in fast-forward or something.

I wish that empire had some feature where infantry could fire out of formation. I've lost countless men because they had to turn to face some cavalry and by the time they were done they were in melee mode.

Heh. Two persistent problems with Total War games that CA has yet to (and probably never will) fix:-

* Diplomacy: AI refuses reasonable deals and reasonable counter offers, stubbornly insisting on unreasonable terms, never comprimising.

* Pursuit of routing units: units pursuing routing units (most often horses) have to be the subject of absurd micromanagement to ensure that units that are running away are run down, including:-

a) following just behind or parallel to escaping units, at a walk or a slow run, doing absolutely fuck all.
b) the entire cavalry unit charing as one towards one individual man whilst his 100 buddies run the other way in an easily killable clump
c) cavalry units repeatedly flow past units they could easily kill if they took a swing, doing nothing.

EDIT: and you'll love this, I thought it was hilarious - why everyone hates you in M2TW - and still not fixed:-

http://t-a-w.blogspot.com/2009/11/why-e ... val-2.html

Yeah, the deal thing is hilarious. Playing ETW as India, I managed to annihilate a dozen armies sent to invade me by Britain, and eventually tech up and destroy much of the Royal Navy to prevent any further landings.

I then offered a white peace, even ready to throw in some money (10 000 or so) and a trade agreement. Do they take it? Hell no! They want my capital region (or one of the best developed ones, I can't remember now) in exchange, or no deal.

They eventually agreed to peace after I took all of their colonial posessions in the Americas away, but by then they hated me so much they'd always declare war 10-15 turns later. I eventually took everything, including Ireland and Scotland. They were left with one region, no navy (against 50 first rates in the european fleets alone)...and they still declare WAR a few turns later

It was kind of sad, really. They could've kept their empire if they just weren't such enormous dickheads...