Shoosh Malooka
11th Mar 2010, 11:13 AM
What are your thoughts on this game? Previously, CA had upset their audience twice, first with Medieval 2: Total War and then with Empire: Total War. Both games carried an insidious army of bugs. Namely: Passive Campaign and Battle AI, a lack of naval invasions, the melee bug, ctd's, and corrupted saves. It took as long as up to a year from launch for the developers to patch the games to acceptable states. Empire was infamously bad because it initially received high scores and praise from critics and reviews but it was arguably broken out of the box for many players. Moreover, CA seems to have had carrot-dangled their fans with false promises patch after patch all the way up to 1.5. Whether Empire is fixed now is still in question.
When Napoleon: Total War was released I watched the forums at GameFaqs and TWCenter, expecting another massive outrage. Surprisingly, my observation is that most players now would agree that NTW ( no patch yet ) is very stable, graphically superior, better optimized than before, and a much better game than Empire could ever hope to be. Sadly, Empire had taken its toll and NTW has just dropped out of the Top 10 at GameFaqs.
I can regurgitate fair testimony from what I've read: Battle AI is improved. It's sometimes competent, even clever, but nowhere near amazing. The chicken dance is now a rarity ( this occurred when the AI couldn't keep its army in formation, resulting in over-corrections of crisscrossed lines leading to failed charges and an easy victory ). AI armies now march in formation to the player, fire and charge properly, and even try flanking. The battle AI is very aggressive and battles are more 'arcadey'. Siege battles have not been changed and are still broken but over 90% of the battles are land battles. Campaign AI has a new feature that allows the player to request another nation to trade embargo someone else.
All this is much of the opposite of Empire's reception. Players say that NTW is what Empire should have been. I'm still waiting it out for the honeymoon over phase, but I can't deny that NTW looks a little bit okay. Modder's tools have not been released and most believe it's because CA wants to thrive on DLC.
What are your feelings toward Napoleon: Total War?
When Napoleon: Total War was released I watched the forums at GameFaqs and TWCenter, expecting another massive outrage. Surprisingly, my observation is that most players now would agree that NTW ( no patch yet ) is very stable, graphically superior, better optimized than before, and a much better game than Empire could ever hope to be. Sadly, Empire had taken its toll and NTW has just dropped out of the Top 10 at GameFaqs.
I can regurgitate fair testimony from what I've read: Battle AI is improved. It's sometimes competent, even clever, but nowhere near amazing. The chicken dance is now a rarity ( this occurred when the AI couldn't keep its army in formation, resulting in over-corrections of crisscrossed lines leading to failed charges and an easy victory ). AI armies now march in formation to the player, fire and charge properly, and even try flanking. The battle AI is very aggressive and battles are more 'arcadey'. Siege battles have not been changed and are still broken but over 90% of the battles are land battles. Campaign AI has a new feature that allows the player to request another nation to trade embargo someone else.
All this is much of the opposite of Empire's reception. Players say that NTW is what Empire should have been. I'm still waiting it out for the honeymoon over phase, but I can't deny that NTW looks a little bit okay. Modder's tools have not been released and most believe it's because CA wants to thrive on DLC.
What are your feelings toward Napoleon: Total War?