Comment # 1

Well, that sound like “blablabla” …we are not independent.

There are some dev teams who are their own publishers and can develop their games until they are finished (!).
You choose the quick money path…now you have SEGA and now you want to make us feel pity for your decision or whats the sense of this blog?

Posted by Xaver on November 3rd, 2009 at 5:57 pm

Comment # 3

I haven’t seen a single game released without bugs.
The question is “Why some bugs still present after 5 patches?”
Why there’s virtually no multiplayer interface?
Why people can’t repair walls?
Why diplomacy have been broken(peace treaty, eh?) forseveral months without quickfix?
I was lucky to avoid crashes, but people complained a lot.
All this little “whys” are justified and turned into 62% on metacritic.
I won’t believe that fixing walls\forts repair issue is so hard that you can’t fix it for 6 months.
Fix all this flaws and maybe there’s a chance you’ll fix ETW’s ruined reputation.

Posted by Lockhard on November 3rd, 2009 at 6:29 pm

Comment # 5

You all need to stop beating yourselves up. ETW is an outstanding game. I was so excited for it to come out and when it did I was not disappointed. I have done the best to beef my system up and I have had a few struggles, but overall the product you all put out is something you should be proud of. The width and breadth that is covered is without a doubt amazing. Thanks for keeping me busy for hours and hours and hours…and that is just Prussia Long Grand Campaign on hard. I will beat that one of these days. Thanks for being true to history and at the same time letting us poor, pathetic gamers play in it! I loved Shogun, I was amazed by Rome, astounded by ETW and look forward to Napoleon! Keep up the amazing work and ignore the loud voices.

Posted by Dan on November 3rd, 2009 at 9:47 pm

Comment # 7

Hey Mike! Great blog and an even better game. I am a vocal fan.

I’m just a lay person not involved in the software industry. I don’t know about the pressures of software publishing deadlines, software profit margins, or the like. What I do know about is integrity, and it seems to me that as an industry (with no one company/publisher singled out) the software industry really fails to deliver its products with integrity. So much so that as consumers we are expected to put up with bugs, patches, and sub par releases. Does anyone else feel this way?

It’s not fair to us, because we want the game to work. It’s not fair to you, Mark, because your masterpiece is being judged harshly in between crashes. It’s not fair to the publisher because word of mouth advertising is going to frustrate their target sales figures.

I’m not going to presume to tell anyone how to correct the issues in their industry; you have obviously put more thought into these things then I have. But (and here is my point) I want you to know that I have a responsibility to be merciless about the products failures. If I am not then I give you permission to make the next release even worse.

You may have had no choice to release when you did Mark, but that is just a symptom of another problem which anyone could only guess at. Poor project management? too ambitious for the time line? Should you have tried to put less in but made it more solid? Maybe put out a surprise feature patch later (you know, under promise over deliver instead of what has happened)? Publishers don’t typically spring deadlines on you.

Inevitably your blogs, although transparent (which is great!) seem to be very defeatist. If there was no way you could have released the game better then you did you give me very little incentive to buy your next title until long after the release date and much research.

I’m taking the time to write all this because I love your games, and I want to see you succeed.

I hate when people who have no clue about my business give me suggestions, but thanks to the anonymity of the web I am going to give one here: Instead of making a point about how negative press is hurting development of the game when your only choice was to release it when you yourself weren’t happy with it… perhaps focus on what you have done to be certain that you never have to release a product you aren’t happy with again. Afterall, it’s not just about extending publisher deadlines at the 11th hour in order to ensure a stable product.

Approaching on blasphemy (and treading lightly) the truth is that Empire: Total War fills a niche, and if you can’t do it solid someone else will. It will be a cold, sad, miserable day if that happens, but someone else will do it. And if that’s what it takes to ensure that software developers release stable, tested, finished, glorious products then that’s what it takes.

Bah – so negative, which isn’t my intention, because you guys rock, and this game is amazing… So all this said. Mark – Your game is the 2nd best game I have played in my life. (Civilization 4, if your curious). From the vision, to the scope of everything it encompasses, to the details… as I was discovering each detail for the first time my gf heard my repeatedly swearing in surprise “Holy *#(*$#!” . Patch 1.5 has made the game very solid indeed. I hope you sleep better at night now.

Please, tell me that the next time I give you my time and money you will treat it with much more care/respect from the beginning. That’s all I need to hear. If you tell me that then you have a clean slate for the next release.

Thanks for all your ongoing work,

Posted by Ash88 on November 3rd, 2009 at 11:55 pm

Comment # 9

I understand the stress management can put on developers, I see this as a lose-lose situatuion. This is why I like “By Request” developement option. Users tell developers what they want and pre-pay for the priviledge. Then the company can see the upfront demand (not including release sales) and no time pressures to release by a dead-line. You could try this on “ETW – World Domination” (add in Asia (china), Africa and South America) expansion. “By Demand” would only work if SEGA could get a large positive response for gamers.

Grant,

Posted by Grant "Ancientwargamer" Dinse on November 4th, 2009 at 1:45 am

Comment # 11

dear creator,

your games are the funnest ive ever played in my life. as a hardcore fan i would like to promise to buy your games aslong as there as badass as mideval II. think theres ever a possibility to remake Rome? dont ver stop making total war games please.

Posted by Daniel Vergara on November 4th, 2009 at 2:53 am

Comment # 13

I am tired of hearing you guy’s push this off on everythimg but shody work.everytime I play this game I get a new error as with most of us unhappy hardcore fans you forgot the most important thing the game has to work there are many fans who can’t play this game and I’m sick off hearing they are in the minority if that is truewhy are there so many with the same type of problems I’m having mostly ctd’s on a system that well excedds minimum spec.Many game companies manage to get quality work out on time as a coustomer I don’t care about you’r money problems I care about the fifty hard earned dollars I wasted on a game that wont do anything but crash.I have owned every total war and now I’m done.Why worry about the next game when I can’t play this one can’t get any answers from tech support and get kicked off the forums because you don’t let people talk ill of you’r broken game.And to top it off it still don’t work and no more patches.CTD!!!!

Posted by Kent318 on November 4th, 2009 at 9:39 am

Comment # 15

I have mixed feelings on this. Yes, commercial goals and gamer goals can (and should) be compatible. Yes, there will be some trade offs. But the quality of the product should be the last thing a value-add, creative company lets slip. They should lose features before releasing broader, buggier games. There is no excuse for selling buggy software. This approach (shall we call it the ‘Microsoft approach’?) can only work long-term if you have the commercial advantage and customer lock-in to support it. Even then, it will vanish as soon as higher-quality alternatives appear.

I love the Total War series and own three games (of which Rome is my favourite). But I haven’t bought Empire, and probably won’t. When the next installment, Napoleon, arrives, I won’t be rushing out to buy it either. I’ll hang on until the bugs are fixed and the price drops. I don’t want to be paying top dollar for whatever work in progress “has to be in a box by date X”.

Posted by Ross Parker on November 4th, 2009 at 10:41 am

Comment # 17

Please fix DIPLOMACY and nonsense declaring of war and refusing peace at Hard and Very hard!! Please make some finish product at least after 7 months after the game launch!…

Posted by Fingon on November 4th, 2009 at 2:11 pm

Comment # 19

When “commercial reality” wins, we live to make another game.

Could’nt agree more.

Posted by K2 on November 4th, 2009 at 3:41 pm

Comment # 21

Your games suck now Mike. Why should I feel sorry for you? Hardcore? Are you kidding? The CA team should download EB for Rome and tell me how hardcore your games are. That mod was made by hardcore fans and it was 10 times better then the vomit you guys are trying to serve to us now.

Selling out is the downfall of a lot of good game designers. Go back to your roots if you wanna save this sinking ship.

Posted by True Warrior on November 4th, 2009 at 8:53 pm

Comment # 23

Does anyone read about what Mike is telling here in term of the theme?
When reading some reactions here and in some forums I’m not sure…. even if some native english or americans understand what he wrotes and writes (I’m not and I’m half german / half polish) and this is not the mistake of Mike.

According to this blog:

he pressure to publish games is high and the time is short or even hard marked to do. So nearly no game is released without problems. This problems has to be fixed by patches, but in ETW they made sometimes things more worse. There were many players which were pleased so long, no crahses and beside named problems for all (bugs) everything allright and playing or having installed not even a single mod to the game. then comes the next patch and “bang” they can’t play and have many crashes and so on. So who is “guilty” for this problem?
Sure, at most people the game still runs fine again, also other are now pleased because their ETW runs now fine, but …. whats about this guy -part of about 20% of all players- who has now problems? His pc configuration is surely not the problem, because one day earlier and before that patch everything was allright at him and the game!
also things as in the moment, when suddenly after patch 1.5 the older driver for the videocard is necessary are not giving a good picture, even when the actual was allrigt before patch 1.5!
Also I have to remark, that many bugs made or given by patches don’t give a good sight on the quality management. Invisible obstacles in battles as they were after a patch really allows the question “does anyone test the patch before giving it?”

Great graphics are only one part of a good game. Game depth is also the same way imprtant Mike, think about it too

Also you know better about the mass of “lost features” in ETW, f.e. the scalad down siege battles with not giving the planned siege stuff as tunnels etc. This is a little bit disappointing for me too, because even when the reasons why they are not included are explainable, to have them in a later way as “addon” will be good and maybe a further way for a longer support for the game.

However, I’m nearly 39 years old, married, 2 sons and I’m playing TW titles from the 1. hour, having some “special contacts” and being moderator / staff in the biggest german speaking TW Forum (TW – Zone) and responsible for ETW and also NTW and so I know whats going on and why and even all the discussions too. I still like the game and titles and I’m finally pleased for myself also with ETW so long.
But it is sure, that the game is not finished and needs further support. Think only, as one example about the here also named not repairable walls of fortresses.
Beside this, there are threads in most TW forums around the world, where people are talking what must be minimum fixed with a further patch.

Thank you
Mandelus

Posted by Mandelus on November 4th, 2009 at 9:56 pm

Comment # 25

Consumer reality will crush Commercial reality … always has and always will.
Your commercial reality is directly tied to us buying your game. It would not even exist if loyal fans didn’t support you.

I guarantee your sales drop on your next release and damn well they should.
There is no market for being ripped off which is what you seem to think you have created – the all-day-sucker that keeps coming back for more.

You need to check your own reality.

Posted by Tony Pike on November 5th, 2009 at 12:14 am

Comment # 27

fix animations please, lands battles are 10% of what medieval was when it comes to close 3d action.

men jumping over fences is a joke for a start i can go on and on but you cherry pick the coments so writing this is as feeble as sending an email to alexander the great

Posted by r donnell on November 5th, 2009 at 6:17 am

Comment # 29

when i bought ETW I though two main things. at first it was wow tihs is epic i can control ships and that the campaign map was huge. then after about a week i realised that its laggy(i have a very good graphics card and over things but i can only play it on low for it to run smoothly) and the combat though looks awsom if its wih other 20 men it doesnt sync up well. the patchs havent realy done any thign that noticable.

but it was a good game, a good mix of history and accesibialty whihc is good for hardcore and casual. but it didnt live up to the hype

Dont ruin Napoleon in the same way as you ahve already lost alot of buyers you might as well make it the best possible to try to claw some back

Posted by maxamus on November 5th, 2009 at 6:00 pm

Comment # 31

I won’t lie, I love every single game that CA has ever come out with. From Shogun to Empire. But with Empire, it was a love/hate relationship. Empire was everything that I wanted, but it delivered it in a way that left me feeling I was no longer important. It wasn’t polished, or trimmed like the titles of the past. It felt like CA had fallen in their standards. I realize now that Empire was not what anyone wanted it to be, although with recent patches its closer to what we had expected.

Ultimately I fear that you guys at CA have sold your souls to the devil in Sega suits. And although it may have been necessary, you guys have a reputation to uphold. Don’t let the suits, or the bean counters, or the publishers tell you when your masterpiece is finished. You are the artisans, you need to take a stand and uphold what made you guys great.

Tell Sega that your customers are unique, we don’t want a rushed game, unfinished and full of bugs. We will wait years for a CA title to be properly finished if necessary. We will be patient and loyal so long as you deliver what we have come to expect.

My only hopes is that Napoleon is everything I expected from Empire. I will place my trust in CA one more time. Please don’t let me down again.

Thanks to everyone at CA for the great games you have made in the past.

Posted by Mark on November 6th, 2009 at 2:32 am

Comment # 33

has anyone else noticed shadows flicker madly on both ati/nvidia hardware?

ive tried both and in 5 patches it hasnt been adressed by anyone at ca.

its visable on campaign map/land battles/not sure on naval i suspect they are

you have to turn away from the sun in order for units to be seen clearly which is really a shame imo.great graphics ruined and no AA either on ati 9.6.

these are things i want to see fixed in napeoleon totalwar thanks!

Posted by mr d on November 6th, 2009 at 8:59 am

Comment # 35

Dear Mike, no matter what other say ETW is the best game ever. (even my laptop is bad I still love it) looking forward to play NTW on lowest graphic

Posted by oPatJRo on November 7th, 2009 at 1:04 am

Comment # 37

I normally buy games I like and want on release day paying the full price.
However, in the case of the Total War series I learned my lesson when I bought M2TW on release day and experienced many bugs and issues.
I then vowed NOT to buy any more Total War games on release day.

When ETW came out I decided to wait before buying it and sure enough I then read that it had many bugs and issues.
I then waited until patch 1.4 came out and bought ETW for $29.99 instead of $49.99.
If the Total War series didn’t have so many bugs and issues on release day then I would have continued to buy the game on release day.

Now imagine that there are hundreds of thousands of players out there who do the same and wait until the game is patched and the price falls, and you can see how much money CA is losing by releasing buggy games.

People are NOT stupid, and they learn from their mistakes.
Perhaps CA should learn from that

Posted by Moshe Levi on November 7th, 2009 at 2:57 pm

Comment # 39

GAH multiplayer campaign

Posted by Dawoad on November 8th, 2009 at 1:43 am

Comment # 41

Thats why game developers such as Valve and Blizzard are so succesfull. They only release the games when they are completely done and completely awesome. The fans love their games and their financial results are there to show.

Have to give kudos to Bioware too. Man that Dragon Age: Origins, thats a game!! No bugs. Endless content. Can’t. Stop. Playing.

Posted by John on November 8th, 2009 at 10:23 am

Comment # 43

I’m with R Donnel.. MTW II plays much better in land battles and has somewaht better graphics too.

Posted by JZG_Pedro on November 8th, 2009 at 7:46 pm

Comment # 45

Well, sounds to me like there was a deadline set that wasn’t able to be met with a successful product. Now, I ask myself, were the developers aspirations just too high which led to an unfinished product (my gut says yet) or was it just too many hiccups with the new engine that had to be ironed out (which pretty much leads back to my former statement).

Medieval 2 Total War’s engine by no means was a terrible engine. The campaign maps were solid, the content of the game was solid graphically and sound system wise. Yet Medieval 2 still had some minor issues that could have been ironed out but consumers were pretty much left on their own with those minor problems. But, basically M2TW was pretty rock solid and is still a favorite.

So, my question really is, why move to a new engine when the old one could have been improved upon? Why move the game, basically, onto an entirely new engine/platform that needed to be ironed out/tested/developed etc? Most of the positive features in ETW could have been implemented in the M2TW engine. Furthermore, things that weren’t necessary such as the ETW campaign map where you can plant units on specific pixels rather than a grid, when cosmetically it’s really no different than the M2TW campaign map, which caused more problems than necessary (and I’m sure there are more examples to this type of unnecessary change).

All in all, CA bit off more than they could chew, produced a half a game, and sold it to the public when CA’s own wouldn’t even give ETW to their friends knowing it was egg in their face. That… is poor leadership, poor judgement, and poor planning.

If you have a timeline, you work with what you know, you improve it if necessary and produce a solid product. What CA did with ETW was aspire to something awesome, developed half of what they were capable, and sold a half-finished product to the public that doesn’t have half the depth of the previous games.

ETW is a graphical marvel but a development nightmare and CA is going to continue to propagate it without the features the fans have been asking for… plain and simple. I’ll be amazed to see cities and forts be properly implemented in Napoleon. Chances are forts will be just as useless as in ETW, they’ll have ninja-hook throwing infantry climbing walls, and cities will be non-existent. On top of that, the attrition/supply system will be so flawed and essentially useless that it’ll take CA even further down the rabbit hole.

Good luck in your endeavors Mike Simpson, but the route CA is going, it isn’t looking too good.

-A once enamored TW fan

Posted by SirVulf on November 9th, 2009 at 7:30 pm

Comment # 47

Personaly, i think that Empire Total War is a huge step forward in the Total War franchise. The first Total War game I played was Rome and I just got Medieval 2 recently. Both were huge titles but the campaign content was in my opinion a little too dry. The campaign map was not exploited to its full potential since only cities can produce cash and troops.
The campaign in Empire is actually MUCH MUCH more complex (esp the economy system) and for the first time, naval battles are included. Also, some of the more niggling parts of the game (like marching units to battle) has also been streamlined.
YET, bugs and technical problems have basically killed the game in the first months of the release. The game was very prone to crashing and although the patches fixed that, it still crashes more often than other programs. Some of the problems mentioned above also occured although I have not noticed until now (like the weak infantry melee and jumping over walls) but they are relatively small now that Empire is starting to look like what it should be.
I think that eventually, I will buy Napoleon Total War but I would not be the first in line after what happened in Empire. Personally, I think that Napoleon should be a further improvement on Empire. (unlike M2TW which is basically Rome in a different setting) One thing I would like to see is the introduction of complex Battlefield cover system like the one used in Company of Heroes where the whole battlefield is divided into no cover, light cover and Heavy cover. Army sizes don’t have to increase but I will like to see more flexible regiments instead of 3-4 lines of men lumbering around the battlefield. One thing I would definitely not want to see is an Empire Total War grand campaign in a different setting.
Still, I won’t be expecting too much since they are still using the same game engine. Keep up the good work CA.
P.S: The music in Empire is very very bad. It is nothing compared to the M2TW music which is exceptionally good.

Posted by Sirchandelstroy on November 12th, 2009 at 10:37 am

Comment # 49

Total War should focus on the fan complaints like huge gameplay problems i.e. men only fighting 1v1, and not assume that they can do the same thing they did with Empire to Napoleon. Remember that none of the countless people who left because of Empire have been posting. Lots of the posters are the slightly mental fans who say that it’s the best Total War ever. I don’t know if Total War fully understands how many people they’ll lose if Napoleon is bad.

Posted by John on November 16th, 2009 at 2:29 am

Comment # 51

My few words are dedicated to the currently intensively discussed article on ‘who-is-this-game-for-anyway’.

Firstly I’d like to express all of my appreciation for the whole idea that lives since the middle of nineties and gives us all fans excellent hours days of entertainment pure… ..The idea to deliver a strategic game for ‘grown ups’ , a game dedicated to historical features and with deep love to proportion in both reality and fun balance and obvious splendid love to detail.

Yes it is actually a game too good for kids or for bored teenies (even though I believe teenies market seghment is of course a great market there for You to grasp too )

However all of us who were fanatic gamers since beginnig of nineties (and some of us fortunatelly stayed obviously still healthy and not converting to sociopathic games playing nerds and IT nuts , hehehehehe) so all we are now in our 30-ies and 40-ties and in this very market segment with exception of few great sports games, there is not that much out there ,I call it, of realistic historic strategies out there on the market nowadays , only these great and splendid Total war strategy series…

For mmyself, who plays it often and at the same time for me who masters both the job and family (my wife and family think Im weird and playing this a bit too often but they#re fond of that fact at the same time that I dont hang out too often with my job or buddies and I#m always there for them, so they allow me this piece of private craziness – the series Total war…

I do remember my excitement once I bought ( I guess it was on business trip in California in nineties) my very first Total war game , it was very first release of Shogun. I was just immediatelly overjoyed and excited , since then the excitement keeps high level. I#ll buy certainly also this one release with our good old buddy Napoleon.

Anyways, at the end I want to wish to Your entire team/company of Total War series (today I guess it’s kind of huge company nowadays) just all the best and many many more creative years and the same pedant approach (we all fanatics of TW in all world we indeed do appreciate very much all Your love for details and Your great approach in getting the history teached also on this entertaining way, I even used it many times to educate the kids in my family on history lessons and at the same time we played few exciting muliplayer rounds..

Ok enough of taking, wishing You all the best and the Total WAR is souveren the ALL TIMES BEST strategic game ever… !!!! (:=)))))))) (claiming it , been there done that, having seen and played basically all of strategic games that do count nowadays)..
Very best regards
Stan ,
one of those plenty of quiet ‘grown ups’ enjoying this great excitement with Your entertaining TW series I found many new freinds around the world.

Posted by Stan on November 18th, 2009 at 3:04 pm

Comment # 53

Hi great game. However, as a mod fan I would like to know if you will release mod tools to allow modders add new regions to the campaign map? Many in the modding community on TWcentre forums would like to add regions like Brazil for example but say CA hasn’t told him how.

Posted by Brian Boru on November 19th, 2009 at 7:47 pm

Comment # 55

ETW has great potentials. All TW games have had great potentials, but RTW reached a point, where the few remaining bugs didn’t matter any more, and so did M2TW, Kingdoms more or less realized the potentials. So in the end I always got what I payed for, I never expected software to be perfect or AIs to be clever.

But I am still waiting for ETW to cross the line from a potential good game to an actual good game. Main reason: Too many CTDs. They are not campaign killers, I just reload (sometimes I have to reboot) and fight on. I guess that of the many hours I have spent playing ETW, about half of them was spent watching some load screen or other.

Constructive suggestion on handling business ethics: Perhaps you should not try to save money on the manual. There used to be good printed manuals in the earlier games, explaining what you can and what you cannot with this particular game. Like, I remember I was very disappointed, when I found out that you had to autocalc sea battles, but then I read the manual, and it stated clearly, that this was not possible. This was a developers decision, if you want sea battles, write your own game, end of discussion.

I realize printing is expensive, but some pdf manual would be okay. Think of the possibilities. If in the manual somewhere it said: “when your fortification is damaged, the only way to repair it is to tear down the whole structure and build a new fort” then a lot of complaints would be a lot easier to handle for you, as you could simply ignore them. Lots of people would certainly complain and probably start flame wars on the issue, but it is your stated decision, so the initiative is yours, end of discussion. Customers will then have to ask you politely to implement this feature in future releases.

I am really looking forward to the MP campaign.

Posted by Duus on November 20th, 2009 at 10:46 pm

Comment # 57

I can’t even play ETW for 10 minutes before it crashes. It always crashes every time and it has become something to expect whenever I put the thing on. Are British Trading Standards needed to intervene in this matter for you to realise that you have to by law place a product on the market that works.

Do you even hear us?

Many of your “hardcore” fans Mark cannot even play the damn thing and my PC is well capable of the recommended specifications.

Now you insult us with news of upcoming ‘Napoleon: TW’. Like have we forgotten whats happened with ETW and I refuse to believe that it not be filled to the brim with bugs, glitches and incomplete content. For example, where is the Forgasse deployable trap that you paraded on TW.com website?

I would organise a boycott but quite frankly I don’t even care anymore. Someone (hint*) very soon is going to replace you and be able to do it way better that you.

Peace : )

PS. Owner of Shogun, Rome, Barbarian Invasion, Medieval II, Kingdoms, Empire.

Posted by Iftikhar on November 22nd, 2009 at 10:26 am

Comment # 59

I first played an ETW land battle last week, and after that a RTW land battle.

And I must say, RTW battles rules, ETW battles sucks!

The speed that your units move at, the powerfull cavalry charges, when units are routing you get 10 kills/second, being able to kill 8000 barbarians with only 2000 romans, men really fighting with each other and not just stand there doing nothing, no retarded gunman that won’t shoot for some reason, epic battles (without a ctd), …

I hope Napoleon Total War will be like RTW again (but then with gunpowder). And no stupid walls, better diplomatics and cannons that work how they should work.

Posted by Ruben Heymans on November 23rd, 2009 at 4:20 pm

Comment # 61

Thanks for the transparent communication!

I see the commercial reality and for you guys, as employees of CA, it is really ‘real’. For many of the posters here the commercial reality is probably daddy’s bank account; so forgive them for failing apprehend ‘reality’

I have always liked the Total War games and also like Empire. I has cost me quite a lot of hours of my precious time

There is one thing I want to share:
Empire was quite bugged at release, which forced me to put the game down for some time. After that there kept on coming new promised patches which would change the AI significantly. Because I wanted to have the best possible experience I waited and waited and as time moved on I got into other games. Since I dont have a lot of time I haven’t really got back into Empire. I still bought the warpack as it came out, it enjoyed it for a few hours but since then I really havent got back into it.

Main point being that because the core of the game was partly suboptimal at release, I waited for promised patches and basically didn’t get back into the game, even not after they were delivered. Time had moved on.

Perhaps in the future I will again find time and motivation to dive into Empire, although I suppose by then Napoleon is out. Since that is supposed to be seriously better, I can’t see how that is a bad thing

I am under the impression that CA has in the meantime adopted an ‘Agile’ type of software development / project management. I can see how that can be a problem for code base rewriting projects and meeting deadlines! I hope CA will be able to release less supoptimal games in the future, because the games deserve it! I cant wait for the Epic battles im sure Napoleon will bring onto my screen

Posted by Lethaface on November 26th, 2009 at 10:22 pm

Comment # 63

Everybody is complaining about the AI, but I would like to raise an issue about maturity – I found the original Medieval: Total War incredibly atmospheric. It took itself seriously and dared to be a game for grown ups. When I played Rome, I felt as if I had been transported to a 12-year old’s world, where everything had been dumbed down to be made as “awesome” and “funny” as possible.

Despite all its progress, this is where the series took a wrong turn for me. I hope you will read this and send it on to the series’ director.

Regards

Posted by ThomasJakobsen on November 29th, 2009 at 2:42 pm

Comment # 65

The irony is that while the barrier to entry is pretty high with total war, it is a very easy game to play casually. The turn based mechanic means you can play it for 30 minutes or 30 hours depending how much time you have.

I think Total War is one of the most casual player friendly hardcore titles around. If you could somehow provide all the complexity that you currently do, but allow for a simpler interface to it, I think you could pitch this at more general gamers too.

Posted by Aaron James on December 2nd, 2009 at 12:37 pm

Comment # 67

From what I have read so far, I saw lot of “unpolished” and such about Empire Total War. One thing I have noticed that any games with a huge ambition cannot be easily polished or fixed. Ambition, I saw it in Empire Total War.

Posted by Kevin on December 4th, 2009 at 10:31 am

Comment # 69

I have been a fan since Shogun and bought every one but thought that from Mediaeval they were over stepping themselves with the complexity. I bought ETW in June for my b’day as it sounded amazing-I have tried to load it on every computer I have (4) and it always crashes. So I have not even been able to find out about the other horrors of ETW yet! The fact that I cannot play it yet and knowing that even when I do the game will be awful is very dissappointing. I paid nearly £40 for the game ($55) and I my spending with TW is at an end until I get some satisfaction from the last purchase. Talk about how to kill a franchise!!!

Posted by GJEO on December 11th, 2009 at 3:37 pm

Comment # 71

Whoa, I do not agree with the people saying “go back to your roots and make another Rome: TW”. They already did Rome TW and it is still great. Empire: TW was my most anticipated TW game but seriously CA, you guys really dropped the ball on what could of easily been the best TW game ever.

No excuse for the AI not being able to do naval invasions on release. There is also no excuse for the corrupted saves, crashes, etc.. etc.. The release really hampered any progressive titles you guys can do now. Unfortunately you’ll probably go back and play the safe card and make Rome II:TW. I say unfortunately because there is already Rome:TW and MTWII that has all the sword and hand to hand fighting one could ever dream of. I played every single TW game (yes including Shogun) and I was most exited about Empire. I was like FINALLY, a break from endless hand to hand /calvery charge for the easy win!

-Big mistake by not allowing a player to control the 13 colonies and start under protectorate status of GB in the standard grand campaign mode (and then allowing them to revolt or not on their own).
-Really lazy work on the different nation’s unit stats on release. They were virtually all the same (The patches and DLC fixed this thankfully).
-Aside from the the obvious naval boarding crash, click a ship and freeze, corrupted saves and countless other bugs… I listed those two above things because really, would it have been so hard? Everyone asked for them on your own message boards!

However, I must admit back in the day I did write on the message boards and voted with others in favor of releasing now (based on the demo) and then fixing/adding as it went. But my god man, I mean I didn’t mean for it not to even work! There was REALLY a contest shortly after release for the first person to post a screen shot of winning a grand campaign- world domination victory. I’m not talking about skill here, I’m talking a contest because it was a miracle if you could get through a game where you didn’t crash out (or on some specific event) that caused your saves to corrupt and no longer progress pass a certain turn. That’s pretty bad!

Perhaps you should find another publisher or maybe, just maybe, you gouged enough money out of people with the countless DLC packs and the game (which was pretty expensive compared to other games if you wanted the extra units) that you can self-fund your future projects like Blizzard.

Posted by Tony on December 20th, 2009 at 10:02 pm

Comment # 73

Dear Mike,

I love the idea of the Hardcore-Fan Game. I am one of those. Loving uniforms and historical correctness. Due to this I have always had one problem with the TW franchise:
Success or call it too much expansion.
I hate seeing my Prussia reaching from Russia to Northern Africa its sooooo Historical uncorrect. And thats not because i want to replay the history. No I just want to make it look at least a bit realistic. Even if i conquer this territory I want it the slow way. I want to know my borders. Some would say: “Just play slow.. dont rush” but thats not my intention. I want to play ETW intensive and get all there is (this has nothing to do with difficulty vh/vh btw.. I think it is more about game depth) and my suggestions (see below) would let it stay at least “historical considerable” for a much longer time…
So I would suggest the following things:

1. Make the provinces smaller and lower the movement of troops

2. Make it hard to spam Stacks like the AI does. Instead (as you might hear often) improve the AI

3. Enlarge the possibility of beeing passive for many turns while trading and growing the economy

4. Bring in more resources and ways of trade treaties

5. Improve the AI’s will to be peaceful from time to time

6. Set priorities to the AI more based on historical facts (F.E. France, England and Spain concentrating on the colonies)

7. Give the map a more friendly colour it looks all to grey and dark (in Europe)

8. Make the controlling of troops in fight more easy ( I remeber trying for days to put some units behind a wall in the way i was thinking of)

9. Enhance the economical importance of single sectors and give us more opurtunities to benefit our economies (For example lower the taxes for industry or open new small towns in that sector not just the determined ones…)

10. Think about a method to make warfare expensive (as it would be more realistic). Supplying one unit in homelands is more easy than supplying them in the countries you are about to conquer. Further a just conquered or attacked sector may have more problems to supply big armies! My solution: Double the upkeep for units abroad or in attacked regions.

11. Think about ways to controll waterways (im thinking of the bosporus) from land by building a fortress or something and make Rives flowing through your territory useful for trade( For example by a new Building: Inland Port)

Further I do understand the industrial pressure on your project ETW. But how can it be possible that such big Bugs and Problems are released with the game. I had a very good PC back then when it was released and every turn used to take hours… Loading a battle took days…
And then it crashes from time to time and restarting isnt much of a joy.

That just to show you what major problems existed. Thats why many are disappointedabout youre game. I know patches have been released and the major rpoblems with running the game will be fixed. But back then it must have caused a lot of bad image. Did your company think about that?

We were waiting from one pronounced release date to the next and couldnt wait to buy it the first day and then spent that day on ETW. And in that moment your game showed up its mistakes which were plenty. So you should have had more time and it would have been better in commercial means as well as in the personal consumers perspective.

Thank you for your attention!

Posted by Jan on December 26th, 2009 at 2:24 pm

Comment # 75

Are you kidding me!? So what you are saying is the Publisher is the only one that matters. You and the publishers would be out of a job is it wasn’t for the customer buying your product. I can tell you for damn sure that I wouldn’t go out and buy a car that wouldn’t run or broke down every 3 days. That’s basically what this game turned out to be (except for the price of a car and this game is way different) it’s a bad lemon. All I can say is NTW better be a hell of a game or you guys are going to be out of a job. oh and another thing, I’d get the hell out of SEGA if they don’t want to take the time to put out a finished game instead of a half, waste of packaging and plastic and wasting my time and money. Don’t think I’m running right out and buying NTW on the release date either and you better believe I’m checking these blogs to see if you actually took the time to release a finished product.

GOOD LUCK ON NTW…IT BETTER BE GOOD FOR YOUR JOBS SAKE!

Posted by Jay on January 2nd, 2010 at 4:33 am

Comment # 77

1. please fix the bugs! I have patch 1.5 on my PC and it runs fine, trouble is when I play battles on the campaign, it freezes and sends me back to desktop. Like most gamers, my PC is quite a capable midrange PC, with a great proc and video card combo and my drivers are updated. The crash incidence rate is unacceptable as when I first played it middle of 2009, I can play longer before it crashes on me. That was before you guys handed me patches over Steam. Reinstall for me does not work.
2. I remain a loyal fan but I must say that I am very disappointed on how every time I play battles in the campaign, it always crashes. Please focus less on the graphics, I bought ETW not for the fancy graphics but for the sheer visceral gameplay experience. Bring it back and win my trust back. Fortis Fortuna Adjuvat

Posted by Rommel on January 6th, 2010 at 9:01 am

Comment # 79

Sorry man, but i´m sick & tired of shooting guns at total war game, shogun, medieval (of course the epic second part),and rome,sword games, tactic games, 60 knights killing 600 infantryman, by tiring them unit that can make the difference, the enemy shivering seeing only one kensai…not two shooting pelotons in front each other, your 4 first games were historic, empire and your new spoiled child not, i don´t care the deep & wide of the wolrd, hiper realistic models…bla bla bla. total war for me were hand to hand, (ok and a little guns, and a little artillery) but man you have to go back to origins, want my money? ok let me play rome total war II and you see it.

Posted by Caesar on January 24th, 2010 at 4:48 pm