I have stopped counting....

[vizhon]

At first I was keeping tabs on the things that I don't like about this game. I've stopped now. It is clear a few of the things I don't like are design decisions that the game is now stuck with. Suffice it to say, this game is NOT the direction I wanted to see Supreme Ruler go in when I was playing 2010. Here's a short list of the biggest peeves I have:

1.) Ministers can't be changed but they are still fleshed out with descriptions like their leanings and personalities and crap actually matter... Clearly they are all the same AI now, so just give them all the same face.

2.) Other countries will NEVER build... Why, in a world wide setting, where it is no longer episodic in it's stories with the abilities to 'update' nations between episodes, and it persistantly plays out on one map would any designer NOT think that a country may want to at least at some point add a new tech facility they just gained access to, or add a new base and garrison on a frontier border that is at threat.... The idea of them never building means that effectively they never change... They can build new forces and they can upgrade themselves through tech bonuses only... That's playing againt targets or ducks in a barrel and not against worthy opponents.

3.) The AI which is required for the computer driven countries to survive in a purely trade driven world economy is clearly a LOT more flexible than the AI would be if the countries had other options than to trade for what they need... This SAME AI seems to be applied to the players. The result is that the AI is STUPID and wants to be ripped off all the time, because they are all so eager to always help their other countries in your buildless, broken trade system.

4.) Can't trade military units?.... WTF?!?!? Where the hell does Isreal get their military hardware if they aren't buying it from the US and EU?... They didn't build their F-16s, or their Abram tanks. Iraq didn't build their own scuds. Non-industrial and low tech nations MUST be able to get their hardware from countries that can produce them, otherwise the whole system is BROKEN. This was a POOR decision and one that in my opinion BROKE the game. For that matter, where the hell did some of the countries GET their starting hardware.... Many of them have hardware they can't build... and because they can't trade for it, it is affectively irreplacible.

5.) Can't destroy (or even cancel build on) any roads or rails laid... This means infrastructures can NEVER be re-designed. They can only be added to, but never fixed.

6.) BUGS - This game is about as buggy as any Beta game rushed out the door that I have played in the past few years. The biggest one that bothers me is the countries collapsing on loading a game... That has completely killed HOURS and HOURS of playtime... It decided to vanish MEXICO in the middle of a war I was having with them as California and then gave most of the country to Texas, who they weren't even fighting at the time.... It just drew a straightline border south from the western edge of Texas (which had gone about halfway through Arizona and drew that border straight south through mexico... Texas got everything to the east of it that I didn't already control and I got the Baja penninsula.

I could throw in a few more bugs and a lot more complaints about design choices they made... Ones that effectively KILL the game in my opinion.

Oh, this looks like a decent game on the surface.. It plays okay, has a cleaner interface, bigger world, but really, under the surface I consider this game very very broken and too many of the breaks are design decisions that appearantly won't ever be fixed.

[prophetUK]

I agree. Initially I was patient, and appreciated that small dev team issues can impact the initial release of a product. I also understand from past experience with teams like Massive Entertainment (World in Conflict etc.) that dev<--->customer interaction is usually higher.
However, I'm now in the same boat as you. My patience has worn out. The product is a complete failure in my view. It's a beta, plain and simple. A beta that people have paid to play. Needless to say I won't be making the mistake of looking at another BG/Paradox product again.

So long, and thanks for all the fish.

[Julien]

Listen, the game is really not better than a beta. It was a terribly wrong idea to release it for money.
BUT look at the other games of the devs! They are really excellent. This game is still full of bugs but if the devs fix them in time, it will be one of the best strategic games. I still trust them.

[jscott991]

How patient have you guys been? One of you registered on June 26. You were willing to be patient, but the devs had only 9 days or so to fix everything? That isn't very patient.

Many of the design decisions are impossible to understand (the passive AI is simply indefensible and no product anywhere else has ever blatantly come out and said that kind of AI was intentional) and the bugs have effectively rendered the game unplayable (I still don't understand how people are playing at all with the Region Collapsing bug going on or how the devs think its acceptable to delay a hotfix on that issue until the full update is available).

But if you have any familiarity with anything put out by Paradox or if you knew anything about 2010, you knew the state the product would be in on release. For whatever reason, these smaller strategy game dev teams simply can't release a product that is finished, balanced, or remotely resembles what the product will be after the first 3-4 patches. That's just how they are. Its not excusable conduct, but its how these games have been since EU1, so you can't buy it and complain that's how it is. That's how its always been.

[George Geczy]

vizhon, while you are correct on some of your points (such as the severity of the 'save game' bug that we should have caught before release), I'm not sure other items on your list of 'biggest peeves' should really be all that serious.

For example, not being able to change ministers. As was mentioned in another thread, Ministers now have less 'mysterious' attributes as compared with SR2010; their biggest factor is their political leaning, and the minister you get is influenced by the political leaning you set when you start the game. Beyond that, priorities are used to allow you to control ministers.

It was a cute idea in SR2010 that some ministers were dumb and made bad decisions, but in actual fact it didn't really work well - in fact, it led to more complaints than anything else (ie "how come my minster can't make money trading oil! must be a bug or bad AI"... well, it was because he's incompetent, and you didn't replace him! ) That sort of thing added more confusion than fun, so in SR2020 we went with Political Leaning as the Minister attribute. As mentioned elsewhere, yes, it has some benefit to be able to select a Conservative Minister in your Liberal government, but you can also set the priorities to get the same effect.

I've also posted elsewhere about the world trade system, and how the AI's use it to deal with their goods and resources issues. It works well, and it keeps things in the game world running in a similar way to the real world, which is a feature some players like to see. If you played Saudi Arabia you wouldn't be too happy if all the Western AIs developed new energy facilities and didn't need your oil any more But yes, there are some situations where building new facilities might add gameplay interest, if done in a limited way.

Trading military units (instead of designs) ? Well, it turns out Israel doesn't buy many M1A1, they build their own Merkava designs. And many regions that buy US units buy the design and build them locally under license (which is well simulated by the game, by trading designs). Yes, there are cases where finished units do get traded in the real world, but in the SR2020 game world this causes issues with movement and delivery.

And regarding Roads/Rails being scrapped... while SR2010 did allow this, it wasn't highly realistic, and it was also very micro-managy (having to scrap one hex at a time). Once a rail corridor is created (blasted/levelled), the work of laying new rails is very quick - they have machines that do it automatically these days. The concept of destroying a railway (or roadbed) is not very realistic.

As I've said in other threads, we'll not only update with bug fixes but we're looking at new features and improvements as well, but some feature suggestions are not as clear-cut as they may seem.

-- George.

[serb]

Totally agree...releasing a half-functional game, and stating that all major things we all expected are not going to be done is very bad PR.


Battle Goat studios to me now has lost it's vision and innovativness, and just as the trend seems to be, w/ some other games , it's to push the game out to collect the $.

What dissappoints me the most is, that Paradox Interactive got involved with this game, it is very damaging to their amazing product's reputation.

Sorry for flame battlegoats, but you deserve it.

[danceswithfools]

I concur.

The more I play this game the more stuff I realise doesnt work or is missing.

The AI cant do overseas invasion..gimme a break how tragic is not being able to lose if your a country like the UK or Australia even if the Entire world is at war with you.

[jscott991]

Uh, Corporal, what are you talking about?

Releasing half-finished games and then improving them substantially IS Paradox's "amazing" reputation. I've purchased every EU product released, Victoria, HoI, and Crusader Kings and I can't remember a single of one of them that didn't need a patch on day 1. All of them were revised continually and few entered a truly "playable" state until after the third or fourth patch (sometimes even later, such as with EU2).

As I said above, this isn't excusable conduct, but it is the standard within this niche industry. The only company that comes to mind as an exception is Stardock (with GalCiv and Sins), but even they refine their games with patches.

[dontob]

Acctualy their last IN expansion for EU3 was good and Rome wasnt that horrible buggy as they used to be

But EU3 sure stunk on release you couldnt even play mulitplayer games lol.

[el_slapper]

HoI2 was playable when edited. But it's muuuuuuuuuuuuuch better right now. Victoria was a huge joke(factory output *5 bug, making it insanely easy) & crusader kings barely playable. EU2, don't know, did buy a 1.06 patched version(budget).

[vizhon]

George,

Nice try at excuses, but that's what I am taking them as. There is not a bug one or an unfinished section that you folks can convince me is supposed to be the way it is from the beginning because it's part of the design. No... You can try to convince yourself of that, the rest of the customers, even the whole team working on the game but an excuse is an excuse is an excuse.

Cities and states DO redesign their infrastructure.

Countries DO trade military hardware.

The book says you can change ministers which clearly makes that a last minute alteration and not a rational part of the design.

If I was playing Saudi Arabia and I was screwing the west with outragious manipulation of the markets, I would EXPECT them to start building nuclear reactors, hydro damns, oil wells and bio-fuel plants to deal with the shortage. If they don't, they are STUPID.

You folks lost my respect as a company by releasing this crap... You folks are permanently losing my business by lieing about it.

PS: Gamespot seems to very much agree with me in their review, though I was a litttle nicer on the scoring, giving a 6.0 and not Gamespot's 4.5 in my own review. Any way you look at it, the discriminating reviewers seem to be across the board on this game being a dud.

[Scott_B]

This game is not that bad. I just wish I had more time to play.

I didn't and don't expect an AI that you are talking about. Being able to react to every action of a human is not going to happen.

HOI was buggy, HOI2 was buggy, EUI EUII EUIII was buggy, Total War was buggy every single one of them released, CIV was buggy, Victoria series was buggy, hell HOI I II are still buggy.

I wish they were all perfect but they aren't

[Rufus101]

4.5/10 on Gamespot...... ouch.

I dont think Brett Todd is going to be getting a Christmas Card from BattleGoat this year.

[Scott_B]

I guess BG didn't buy enough advertising with GS considering their reviews are often different then my own. The user rating was far higher. And GS always sucks on their reviews anyway and they are often biased and obviously so.

The biggest con was the reviewer at GS thought it was too complicated or whatever. In other words "it's only good for the fanatical strategy players" which translates into he isn't one and shouldn't be reviewing the game. It would be like me reviewing a FPS which I can't stand the mind numbing stupidity of such games as Quake et al. generations.

[Legend]

Thanks for the support regarding the GS review. Communicating with the reviewer before the review did leave us thinking it would score a bit better...

We do have many other reviews that tend to balance out the GS review...
http://battlegoat.com/reviews_2020.php
I've just updated this page with a few new ones discovered by our publisher. Enjoy.