A game with some of the best AI, some bad design choices, and a fair share of bugs makes for a game which can't live up to its own moments of brilliance.
The map, whilst very nice to look at, is horrendous. It gives no real visual clues to anything, especially line of sight. You place your cannon or men in a position which looks like they'd clearly be able to fire and engage someone,A game with some of the best AI, some bad design choices, and a fair share of bugs makes for a game which can't live up to its own moments of brilliance.
The map, whilst very nice to look at, is horrendous. It gives no real visual clues to anything, especially line of sight. You place your cannon or men in a position which looks like they'd clearly be able to fire and engage someone, and they will sit there, motionless. You click on an enemy unit, and they refuse to fire at it. Doesn't matter that they are lit up to be in your LoS, whether they think they can actually see it is apparently random.
There is a topographic mode included, to help alleviate this bad visual design. Shame that's mostly useless as well. You place your cannon at the top of the hill, they still can't see bugger all. Oh, it's because I placed them a few meters to the left so now they can't see. Even with the Topographic mode it's still hard to tell ridges and valleys apart, so in the end I felt I had to play the same map several times before I even knew where and where not to put my units, or where I had to exactly place my cannons for them to be useful.
Every battle so far seems to have its share of bugs. Units will sometimes follow crazy paths, they will need to be told to do things several times, or sometimes they will just suddenly become pacifists and never fire at anyone. In my most recent battle, almost all the units on the map stopped fighting each other. They apparently declared a truce and never did anything to each other. I could order them to attack and they would stand there. I could position my units so that they were physically intermingled with the enemy, and still nothing. When ordered to charge they ran past the enemy unit and had a tea break. In other battles I've had magic positions on the battlefield, where any unit that enters it is petrified for the rest of the battle and can never move again, both my side and the enemy. This isn't the pre-release version. This is several months AFTER release mind you, plenty of time to fix issues like this.
When the Unit AI isn't bugging out, it's actually rather good, at least for Cavalry and Infantry. They can often be trusted to carry out orders without any intense micro-managing, but I found it's easier to keep check on them in case they decide it'll be fun to walk across 50 enemy cannons and have a tea party whilst being flanked. Cannons need to be micro-managed though. If you place it just below the crest of the hill (A very easy mistake to make with the unclear maps) and you order it to attack someone, there is no clear visual or audio feedback telling you they can't attack. So rather than having an artillery barrage help break the line before your army attacks, your attack has been routed because you didn't know your cannons are a few meters out. You'd think that they'd maybe roll forward at least a few inches so they can attack what they are being told to attack, but they prefer to just ignore you
The enemy general AI, however, is brilliant. There are several different AI Personalities that a general can get, ranging from ultra defensive to all-out attacking. And they do make a big difference to how a battle goes. The AI isn't stupid either. They actually know how to fight battles, using actual proper tactics. I've been fairly outplayed by them a good few times. They know when to attack weak units, when to charge, when to swap out tired units for fresh ones, and a few times I've been totally out flanked. It isn't just good AI, or passable, this truly is some of the best I've ever seen in a game.
The UI is rather pretty, but this is apparently at the expense of usability. It gives very little feedback on your units, terrain, or the battle. It's hard to determine when a unit is breaking or not without first clicking them to bring up their small info-boxes. Whilst it is manageable in the smaller battles on the first day, as soon as large battles start it can be incredibly easy to miss units breaking or routing on different parts of the field, or whether or not that unit you're attacking with is in any condition to fight. This all isn't a very bad point or anything, but it is more of an annoyance. I would much rather have a lot more information presented to me rather than having a screen that looks pretty.
In summary, this is a flawed game. Bugs can easily ruin enjoyable battles, and it's Mobile orientated design saps a lot of character from units and makes it very hard to easily tell what's going on. However, the AI is really something to admire. I've not seen Strategy AI this clever in a long, long time. It's such a shame that the rest of the game lets itself down… Expand
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