Hello Guys, (still no girls discovered here, strategy seems to be completely off limits to ladies)
Well, I've had my first couple of hours of playing around with the game.
I think it has a very wide scope, this is really a tough game.
(my previous gaming experience includes Civ I and II, SMAC, Imp I and II, Lords of the Realm I and II, RRT II, AOE I and II, just to give you a flavor)
I read some in the manual (not all of it, after an hour or so I couldn't resist to start playing), but by now I think you really do need the manual.
There are some 'in game' tips available, and the tutorial scenario helps, but at least for me it's not enough to play without having the manual at hand.
I'm most certainly not about to give up though, I feel the game really deserves an extended effort to get into it.
The learning curve doesn't appear to be very steep.
And, I must admit that there really are a few irritating bugs.
Some of my problems so far may very well be due to my inexperience, but at least I couldn't readily find an explanation and/or additional help in the manual.
So, I really donot aim at discrediting the game, but here are the flaws I have encountered sofar (I apologize in advance if they turn out to be the result of my ignorance)
1. the 'in game' sliders for control of music and sounds donot function, I simply cannot turm off just the music, so I ended up playing with no sound at all (the music is rather repetitive and annoying after a while).
2. Directx was supposed to be on the cd, (even according to the manual) but it's not.
3. I doubt if anybody playtested the german version of the game before making it final and producing for customers (I can't imagine that these errors are present in the swedish or english version), which I would at the very least consider a bloody shame.
a. all battles are referred to as seabattles
b. sometimes the comment line on a battle is garbled (e.g you are being attacked by troops from manhattan in natives, or 'troops from ... in Portugal when I have no men in Portugal at all)
c. I sometimes have trouble in getting troops on shore from the ships that transported them
d. Sometimes my army cannot enter a nabouring province, although I'm at war with that country
e. I had (playing Holland of course) moulded an alliance that I thought would be solid in times of war, but none of the allies (Hanover, Cologne, Hessen and another I forgot) honored the alliance when war broke out (with Spain), whereas our relationships were close to 200 (max), not even allies sharing my faith came to my aid or even declared war. Strange, I would think. Spains allies all honored their commitment and declared war on them. The Maltha knight even sent an unreal number of 24 ships all the way to the Dutch coast, amongst which there were about 12 galleys, that are suppose to sink if you take them out of the mediterranean sea
No in game messages about a broken alliance or anything either.
f. the ai does seem to cheat a bit (producing 60 pieces of artillery in one low populated province in the time I could hardly build 40 in all my home provinces at once).
All the above are comments for the easiest settings for the game (I thought I'd better not give myself a hard time the first time around, but I still had a hard time, playing only about 10 years in say about 8 hours, slowest speed).
Still, I'm certainly not giving up, although I find it rather hard to keep track of everything that happens and needs attention, I pause the game quite a lot, even at the slowest gamespeed.
But that's probably my inexperience
All in all the game doesn't appear to be as polished for new players as some of the games mentioned above. On the other hand, I realize this is a lot more complex than any of them.
In my view however it would have been very useful to get an ingame explanatory note if you try something that is impossible.
Just an example of how I got stuck for a while:
I wanted to merge two armies. Cost me about half an hour to figure out how. (it's in the manual allright, but not in the places I started to look for it).
Sure, could be just me, but I didn't like it that I couldn't quickly find the solution.
Must be something with my logic
But ofcourse the best thing is: I'm playing!
I promise I'll write some more after having gained a little experience.
(P.S. I did have most VP after Spain, but I'm almost sure I wouldn't have been able to keep it that way, my merchants were being forced out of the cots a lot quicker than I could replace them, even though I had the highest trade tech of all, maybe Johan didn't know about the dutch being the best traders of them all?
greetings, Oranje
Well, I've had my first couple of hours of playing around with the game.
I think it has a very wide scope, this is really a tough game.
(my previous gaming experience includes Civ I and II, SMAC, Imp I and II, Lords of the Realm I and II, RRT II, AOE I and II, just to give you a flavor)
I read some in the manual (not all of it, after an hour or so I couldn't resist to start playing), but by now I think you really do need the manual.
There are some 'in game' tips available, and the tutorial scenario helps, but at least for me it's not enough to play without having the manual at hand.
I'm most certainly not about to give up though, I feel the game really deserves an extended effort to get into it.
The learning curve doesn't appear to be very steep.
And, I must admit that there really are a few irritating bugs.
Some of my problems so far may very well be due to my inexperience, but at least I couldn't readily find an explanation and/or additional help in the manual.
So, I really donot aim at discrediting the game, but here are the flaws I have encountered sofar (I apologize in advance if they turn out to be the result of my ignorance)
1. the 'in game' sliders for control of music and sounds donot function, I simply cannot turm off just the music, so I ended up playing with no sound at all (the music is rather repetitive and annoying after a while).
2. Directx was supposed to be on the cd, (even according to the manual) but it's not.
3. I doubt if anybody playtested the german version of the game before making it final and producing for customers (I can't imagine that these errors are present in the swedish or english version), which I would at the very least consider a bloody shame.
a. all battles are referred to as seabattles
b. sometimes the comment line on a battle is garbled (e.g you are being attacked by troops from manhattan in natives, or 'troops from ... in Portugal when I have no men in Portugal at all)
c. I sometimes have trouble in getting troops on shore from the ships that transported them
d. Sometimes my army cannot enter a nabouring province, although I'm at war with that country
e. I had (playing Holland of course) moulded an alliance that I thought would be solid in times of war, but none of the allies (Hanover, Cologne, Hessen and another I forgot) honored the alliance when war broke out (with Spain), whereas our relationships were close to 200 (max), not even allies sharing my faith came to my aid or even declared war. Strange, I would think. Spains allies all honored their commitment and declared war on them. The Maltha knight even sent an unreal number of 24 ships all the way to the Dutch coast, amongst which there were about 12 galleys, that are suppose to sink if you take them out of the mediterranean sea
No in game messages about a broken alliance or anything either.f. the ai does seem to cheat a bit (producing 60 pieces of artillery in one low populated province in the time I could hardly build 40 in all my home provinces at once).
All the above are comments for the easiest settings for the game (I thought I'd better not give myself a hard time the first time around, but I still had a hard time, playing only about 10 years in say about 8 hours, slowest speed).
Still, I'm certainly not giving up, although I find it rather hard to keep track of everything that happens and needs attention, I pause the game quite a lot, even at the slowest gamespeed.
But that's probably my inexperience
All in all the game doesn't appear to be as polished for new players as some of the games mentioned above. On the other hand, I realize this is a lot more complex than any of them.
In my view however it would have been very useful to get an ingame explanatory note if you try something that is impossible.
Just an example of how I got stuck for a while:
I wanted to merge two armies. Cost me about half an hour to figure out how. (it's in the manual allright, but not in the places I started to look for it).
Sure, could be just me, but I didn't like it that I couldn't quickly find the solution.
Must be something with my logic
But ofcourse the best thing is: I'm playing!
I promise I'll write some more after having gained a little experience.
(P.S. I did have most VP after Spain, but I'm almost sure I wouldn't have been able to keep it that way, my merchants were being forced out of the cots a lot quicker than I could replace them, even though I had the highest trade tech of all, maybe Johan didn't know about the dutch being the best traders of them all?
greetings, Oranje
