Disappointing 1805 Invade England Scenario

[Omnius]

I decided to try out the 1805 Invade England scenario to see how the naval aspect worked and was rather disappointed in the scenario design. I set the autoturn to play the game so I could watch both AI's go at it. Somewhere between turns 19 and 28 the game encountered an insufficient memory problem and dumped me back to the game's main screen instead of all the way to desktop.

I was disappointed that there was a bunch of stuff in the scenario setup like troops in India and Canada that really had no bearing on the scenario's outcome. Really no reason to see Wellesley in India when India doesn't figure into the victory conditions or true area of play. This seems to be a recurring problem as the 1815 scenario had the same problem. Scenario playing areas should be limited to those truly germane to the playing and winning of the scenario and those areas not needed should be put out of play. All these superfluous areas do is give the AI's more areas to waste it's units moving to and from.

The other really disappointing thing was no options for buying new replacement units. Really sad to see the British amass so many conscripts and money only to not have anything to spend them on. Can't really play with hard attrition with this scenario because of the lack of replacements. A real shame the time wasted on putting superfluous units on the map wasn't better invested in making options for buying more replacements.

I was really disappointed in how militia replacements just seem to accumulate while line infantry gets wasted on manning depots when we play the option to draft from depots. Kind of pointless to play that option when the replacements end up wasted on manning depots while militia replacements pile up. I also noticed that light artillery replacements don't get used up either and medium artillery gets wasted on fortress guns in out of the way forts. I'm glad that Bohemond is fixing that oversight and can't wait to see how he has used the various artillery classes that the original scenario designs didn't. I also enjoyed playing around with Bohemond's 1815 scenario where militia replacements get used as garrisons in France, just wish that had been done to all scenarios in the initial offerings. So far I haven't seen a scenario that gives us supply wagon replacements or even an option to buy them. Some scenarios have replacements for Generals yet all they do is pile up.

Better scenario designs could have made NCP a much more enjoyable game and given us players more value. Ever since the industry started going towards moddable scenarios they've dumbed down their scenario designs as a way to save manpower time and cost. Moddable scenarios should not be used as an excuse to dumb down scenario design, not everyone wants to learn a scripting language to mod a scenario to be more playable and enjoyable. Why should having fun be so much work?

Every game company sings the same old lame song about not wanting to invest more in proper scenario design as a way to save production time and cost. Then they wonder why their game's lose player interest after a short period of time. I sure hope that AGEOD will do more to improve scenario designs so that they are enjoyable right out of the box with no mussing and fussing by us players. There's just no excuse for the myriad minor muffs in every scenario's design and these should be fixed by AGEOD and not left to hoping some customer like Bohemond will do the trick long after release. I also hope that AGEOD does better at providing a better area on the forum for players who do like to mod to post their handiwork for others to enjoy.

[Gray_Lensman]

deleted

[Undead]

Let's sum this up. You're reviewing a game that's four years old and the developers have done at least four newer games since then and even now are still working on a new game engine patch for NCP when other much larger software companies just abandon their older games ie. Creative Assembly's Rome Total War game for example.

FYI, There are a few player/modders actually working on scenario improvements that will probably be included in the next patch. If you have specific ideas about scenario improvement details, you'll have much better luck at getting something done by posting specific suggestions in the How to Improve NCP subforum.

The point isn't to get a new patch four years after, but having a full worling games 4 years after its release and being yet currently sold at full price. Your remark is just irrelevant. Someone buying today NCP gets a less than satisfactory game.

[PhilThib]

Nobody forces you to buy at full price. A game that is 4 years old has been amply reviewed and commented by many players since long... so if it is really heralded everywhere that the product is worthless, then if you buy it and are displeased, this is your problem.

Now the truth is that the game has sufficient good point to please the majority of customers as a whole, and there are indeed some flaws in scenarios that are not optimized and things that could have been done better....and we offer our players a level of support and service quite above average in this industry.

Even a game like AACW that has been praised, aclaimed and (gold) rewarded by the community is still receiving support, not only by us, but also by the community itself.

Gray rightly pointed out that criticism is normal and welcome and that it bears fruit by also being constructiver... criticizing just for the sake of venting out disastifaction is probably satisfactory for some people but is not leading to improvement and progress

[Omnius]

I decided to play the 1804 Invade England scenario after all and on turn 18 I got the dreaded error message that completely crashed my game on that turn. After sending a bug report and files to PhilThib I decided to go back in and restore the previous turn which didn't work but going back two turns did the trick and I was able to get past the prior crash bug and finish the game. I'm grateful for the wonderfully anal save game feature that saves each turn as a separate file as that was a real gamesaver for me.

My suggestion is making better scenarios, not putting in stuff or areas that aren't relevant to the scenario at hand. Also making sure that if you include replacements like militia or light artillery that they actually have a function in the scenario and get used. It became clear that artillery was totally dumbed down in NCP and thanks to Bohemond that should change so that artillery is more properly designated by type so that there will be a use for light artillery replacements and medium artillery replacements won't get wasted on fortress batteries. This should have been done right from the start, not coming 4 years after release. I played Bohemond's 1815 scenario where he fixed garrisons in France to be militia and that was so much better than the stock 1815 scenario where my line infantry repelacements I just drafted from depots with that option just end up going back into depots. I just wish that had been done to all scenarios as I saw at the end of watching the AI's play the 1813 scenario that the Russians had 93 militia replacements wasted on the replacement screen.

I wait for games to become several years old before buying them because I find that recently released games are far from ready for primetime. I want to buy and play a finished product. NCP was far from a properly finished product and it's only with the 1.07 patch that we're seeing the corrections Bohemond is making that really should have been fixed long ago. I'm glad I waited 4 years before buying and I'm waiting patiently for the final 1.07 patch to come out before really diving into some of the larger longer scenarios.

NCP is a good game to be sure, but it suffers from those annoying little problems like events and database problems that lessen our enjoyment. Making better scenarios would really help games have a longer shelf life with players, a real shame that so few now comment on the game except for a few newbies.