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Questions from a potential buyer - 9/19/2006 10:03:27 PM

Cheesehead

Posts: 418
Joined: 2/9/2004
From: Appleton, Wisconsin
Status: offline

I'm a WiF guy who's interested in trying a new game (and a new war) for a change of pace. I've been patiently waiting for EiA to come out on computer, but I'd like to play something now. Can anyone answer a few questions I have?
1. What is the naval system like? Is there ship to ship engagements or is it all abstracted?

2. Is the AI acceptable to learn the nuances of the game, as well as the strategy?

3. My preferred method for wargaming is PBEM. Does this game work well in PBEM mode?

4. If I order the game directly from Matrix will it include all the updates?

Any other encouraging or discouraging remarks would be appreciated.

Thanks

John

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You can't fight in here...this is the war room!

Post #: 1

RE: Questions from a potential buyer - 9/21/2006 1:44:11 AM

Joram

Posts: 3198
Joined: 7/15/2005
Status: offline

Just my opinions. Please keep in mind despite my criticisms I do enjoy the game.

1) You can put ships in fleets and move them around zones. I don't think one ship is supposed to represent one ship though but a squadron. Not sure of the exact scale. In anycase, combat is handled only by "quick combat" and is thus somewhat abstract. You can define what "line" the ship is in but that's about it.

2) Strategic AI is good though it's sometimes forced to do dodgy things to keep the game challenging. I'm fine with that but you don't always know why a country did what it did. But as I said, it's generally pretty challenging. Tactical AI is in my opinion pretty poor. It's not that it's bad, but just that once you figure it out, it is easy to exploit (not in a cheating way, but to exploit it's poor decisions). If I were to humanize it, the AI just doesn't have any imagination.

3) No idea actually as I usually don't have that time to invest

4) Matrix has to answer that one as I bought this game a long time ago.

(in reply to Cheesehead)

Post #: 2

RE: Questions from a potential buyer - 9/24/2006 9:31:14 PM

Titanwarrior89

Posts: 3283
Joined: 8/28/2003
From: arkansas
Status: offline

I say buy it. Its agood game. Besides you could be waiting a long time for the other.

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"Before Guadalcanal the enemy advanced at his pleasure. After Guadalcanal, he retreated at ours".

"Mama, There's Rabbits in the Garden"

(in reply to Cheesehead)

Post #: 3

RE: Questions from a potential buyer - 9/25/2006 1:22:47 AM

Rapier117

Posts: 12
Joined: 9/11/2006
Status: offline

My opinions on CoG

I've had the game a week now and played it whenever possible. Completed a campaign as Turkey and played a little as Prussia and Spain.

First day I would have thrown the game in the bin if I hadn't read these boards that said there is a learning curve. Very little in the game is intuitive. You have to read the manual and try things/make mistakes to learn. Even after reading the manual many aspects of the game are unclear.

Second day its still just plain frustrating. Most of your time is spent at the strategic map level trying to get more of this resource or that resource. Making units to fight is "like pulling teeth"....

Third day.... Finally you start to get enough units to have some real battles. The tactical battles are great fun. Be aware my first love is tabletop turn-based wargaming. The AI is ok but can be beaten without much fuss. I'm playing at the "normal" level so may be better at higher difficulties?

Since then the game has kept me entertained. Still frustrating often but the tactical battles keep me interested.

The strategy level map and interface is crap by modern day standards. Too much clicking on things to inspect when a simple "mouse-over" popup window would suffice. To many parts of the game are "secret mens-business" /wink /nod.

The designers need to make thing intuitive. You should be able to see fairly clearly how things work and if thats not possible than the explanation should be in-game.

For example, how do you make textiles? Why is it capped on the resources screen? I only half understand it from reading posts from other confused gamers. What are the yellow triangles on the nation relationships screen? I think they indicate allies?? I could go on....

In summary, the game is ok by modern gaming standards. I do enjoy the tactical battles. Still many bugs (did I mention that the summary screen after a tactical battle it always gets the battle statistics around the wrong way... the defender gets the casualty count of the attacker) but they don't make the game unplayable.

You can't just pick up the game and play. Expect to spend many hours learning.

6.5 / 10

(in reply to Cheesehead)

Post #: 4

RE: Questions from a potential buyer - 10/17/2006 10:30:15 PM

Syagrius

Posts: 165
Joined: 5/12/2006
Status: offline

I agree with this statements. The interface really needs improvement, I mean you have to manually check yourself if someone declared war to you. In any other game I played the player is informed of this, I mean come on... I think this game has been overrated by the critics, and some matrix fans.

< Message edited by Syagrius -- 10/17/2006 10:32:34 PM >

(in reply to Rapier117)

Post #: 5

RE: Questions from a potential buyer - 11/10/2006 12:43:17 AM

1LTRambo

Posts: 313
Joined: 8/31/2004
Status: offline

I purchased this via download and received the disc in the mail. No you do not receive any of the patches as part of the download. You have to log in to the member area and download the latest patch. You also do not receive a written manuel. The tuitorial is helpful but it does not fully explain all of the game mechanics. If you are a person willing to play learning games just to figure this thing out, then get it. If you are one to learn how to play from a manuel and then play, then don't get this.
The major problem I have had is the listed system requirements is 512 RAM. However, the game actually requires around 500 RAM by itself and bogs my computer down. Make sure you have 1 GB of RAM or more in order to play effectively.

(in reply to Cheesehead)

Post #: 6