Why CoG:EE Is A Solid 8/10 Game

[Anthropoid]

ORIGINAL: ubik

Congrats on a great and detailed review!

I'd give it 9 out of 10, maybe because I am less demanding!

I agree. It is a solid nine (9) to 9+ for me. My guess is you are just a very discerning customer Barbarossa, and I don't begrudge your lower rating, but I'd encourage you to look at it from my perspective too.

There are definitely more things that _could_ be included in a game engine like this, or slight issues that might not suit all opinions. But to me that is not what distinguishes a good game from a great game.

This game installs seamlessly, it runs beautifully, it has good to excellent documentation, you can get on here on the forums and chit-chat with the designers, Matrix is one of the best consumer experiences a gamer can have, and the game is the epitome of "strategy war game." It is NOT the epitome of real-time strategy graphics-fest posing as strategy war game, and I think that is what some might be expecting (not you Barbarossa, but the 'general' gamer community maybe), but IMO not only are such standards not applicable to such a game, but such standards are trivial to begin with.

A graphics fest with a stupid AI that does not even know how to play the game is something you can achieve by throwing a bunch of money at game development.

A balanced, intriguing, subtle, artistically-satisfying, historically-accurate-enough, challenging, easy-to-learn/hard-to-master game like COG:EE is a work of art. You don't create art with big bankrolls, you create it with inspiration, hard work, team work, vision, and dedication. _THAT_ is what characterizes these guys, this game, and THAT is why we gamers who are true devotees of this genre need to stand behind their accomplishment and heap accolades on them.

If even an additional 10% of the "strategy" games that come out each year can shift even just a few points toward the COG:EE end of the spectrum, and a few points away from the E:TW end of the spectrum, it is good for all of us.

Poser strategy games with expensive, and rig-snagging graphics are here to stay. No amount of bitching or complaining by us Grogs is going to offset the massive reaping of profits that these market-strategies are achieving by tapping into the fringes of the X-box segment.

That right there is why we all need to stand behind good to great, nah even MEDIOCRE, games that are honest manifestations of true strategy gaming with devotion and conviction. In a competitive world in which games like Civ 4 and Empire: TW get massively rewarded for design sleights of hand that involve a basic dumbing-down of 'strategy,' and oversimplication of game mechanics but with front-end 'chrome' and fancy graphics and presentation that transfixes and beguiles, true strategy games like COG:EE are 'endangered species.'

[barbarossa2]

Haha... Yes, Dr. Evil. I am sure CoG:EE will assuredly be a 9/10 when the first patch comes out. And I have added that note to the review above now to make you happy.  And I have to say, without a doubt, it is the best Napoleonics diplomacy and grand strategy game I have ever played. Though AGEOD's Napoleon is also good. I love the multi-front, 23 year scenarios with lots to do to keep other opponents happy.

I have to admit, however, if WCS could put in a tactical battle engine in as beautiful as the one Total War:Empire offers, but do the same thing for its tactical "realism" that they did for Napoleonic diplomacy, then they would get a 10/10. No doubts.

[Anthropoid]

ORIGINAL: barbarossa2

Haha... Yes, Dr. Evil. I am sure CoG:EE will assuredly be a 9/10 when the first patch comes out. And I have added that note to the review above now to make you happy.  And I have to say, without a doubt, the best Napoleonics diplomacy and grand strategy game I have ever played. Though AGEOD's Napoleon is also good. I love the multi-front, 23 year scenarios with lots to do to keep other opponents happy.

I have to admit, however, if WCS could put in a tactical battle engine in as beautiful as the one Total War:Empire offers, but do the same thing for its tactical "realism" that they did for Napoleonic diplomacy, then they would get a 10/10. No doubts.

By realistic, do you mean the graphics, or the dynamics?

[barbarossa2]

Dr. Evil, what I meant was, I don't think that Total War: Medieval/Rome/Medieval 2/Empire's tactical combat engines are realistic (sure the graphics are beautiful).  Battles are lightening fast and armies fight to the death far too often (I rarely get out of a multi player tactical battle without having lost 80% of my men), and there really aren't enough maneuver units in my opinion (the cap is at 20).
 
I wish that CoG:EE had the same kind of battle engine that the total war series has, but more realistically played.  I simply don't enjoy anything hex based anymore really.

[lenin]

ORIGINAL: barbarossa2

Dr. Evil, what I meant was, I don't think that Total War: Medieval/Rome/Medieval 2/Empire's tactical combat engines are realistic (sure the graphics are beautiful).  Battles are lightening fast and armies fight to the death far too often (I rarely get out of a multi player tactical battle without having lost 80% of my men), and there really aren't enough maneuver units in my opinion (the cap is at 20).

I wish that CoG:EE had the same kind of battle engine that the total war series has, but more realistically played.  I simply don't enjoy anything hex based anymore really.

That would be my dream too, Barbarossa. Unfortunately, if anyone ever pulled it off, I don't think I would ever leave my house.

[Anthropoid]

ORIGINAL: barbarossa2 . . . I wish that CoG:EE had the same kind of battle engine that the total war series has, but more realistically played.  I simply don't enjoy anything hex based anymore really.

That is an interesting point, and it makes me wonder about the distribution of various tastes and preferences for the graphical side of user experience (GSUE) among gamers these days. Games like Civ, the whole 3D first-person-shooter genre (FPS), and then the highly 'realistic' graphical experiences in myriad real-time strategy games (RTS) have done a lot to transform the standards and expectations in the market, and I am frankly a bit discouraged by that transformation. I noticed in a previous post that Ubik said something similar about 'graphics being paramount,' if I may paraphrase. It is an interesting isssue from both a consumer psych, and anthropological and a game-marketer perspective.

I'll state up front that my tastes are with games like War in the Pacific (WiTP), Forge of Freedom (FoF) COG:EE, and games with similarly austere GSUE that are more 'realistic' in (a) being scaled to realworld terrain and geography; (b) intrinsically based on a turn-based system in which most variation in performance at the game does not depend on what I call 'Twitch Factor Gaming' (TFG)(handeye-coordination and in particular keyboard-hotkey-mouse-screen coordination of hand-eye executive function); (c) allow for detailed terrain-combat-unit dynamics to be simulated (e.g., a "Woodsman" unit in a wood hex/tile is not so easy to simulate in a non-hex RTS-style map I would think?). What these games lack in complexity of GSUE they more than make up for in actual depth of historical detail, nuances of strategic potential, and capability to simulate real historical (or fantastical) social/military dynamics with a reasonably easy to run engine that remains balanced and challenging to comprehend and master.

I have not played any of the Total War series, but I did play a bit of Starcraft, and Star Wars Empires(?) (the one that is similar to Starcraft in game design). Admittedly, a game like Star Wars Empires (SWE) is not WITHOUT strategy, it is simply that the visceral 'rewards' of the battles are a much more prevalent element of the experience than is the introspective analysis of strategic and tactical factors. I found that if I played SWE by constantly hitting the pause button, I enjoyed it quite a bit, and probably got a good two months of gaming out of it, playing an average of 10 or 15 hours a week.

Starcraft I uninstalled after maybe 8 hours of trying it. It was, to put it quite simply, a 'kid's game,' that I simply could not get in to.

I'm guessing the TW series are more toward SWE, but now withe even more grandiose engine, security, 'steam' perambulations to wade through, and for a gamer like me, who I guess I'd characterize as a fairly typical 'Grog,' it is just not worth it.

My great fear is that these TFG RTS, glitz-factor GSUE games are 'taking over.'

Don't have any real data to back that up, but when I hear someone like you, who is obviously a very mature, very thoughtful, intelligent, knowledgeable and serious strategy gamer, i.e., also a 'Grog,' say that he has 'had it with hex-based,' it seems to me to corroborate that they are 'taking over.'

I suppose a GSUE like Civ _is_ in _some_ ways more pleasing than one like WiTP or COGEE or FoF. I have to put a lot of emphasis on SOME.

I find the Tactical battles in FoF and COGEE to be absolutely enthralling, at least for the course of one or two campaign wins. Granted the AI is not that able to standup to a human, and after winning maybe 3 or 4 games with FoF I stopped playing it for a long period, but in the instance of a game like Starcraft of SWE, I didn't even get that much mileage out of a game that lacked the tactical and strategic sophistication, but did have better graphics.

I'll put forward an 'hypothesis,' I think that we are increasingly beguiled and transfixed by mass-media. I look at games like World of Warcraft, which are really not even games at all, but merely 'past-times.' A game has a basis for winning and losing. WoW (and evidently Empire Total War: Napoleon based on the review) can neither be "won" nor "lost" as far as I can tell; it simply takes time and energy and yes, indeed, thought, and teamwork, to get the imagery you want most: watching your Level 80 bad-arse character whooping up one everyone in sight . . . To me it is like a classic operant conditioning exercise in which the proverbial rats have been habituated to push the bar that should provide them with a 'real' reward (e.g., a food pellet, or to use the gaming equivalent, an 'honorable win' that is based on a thorough strategic understanding) but instead all they ever get is a 'pretty picture' that they find ephemerally satisfying, and a prompt to push the bar again.

To me, if you want to see a 'pretty picture,' heck! Go outside and go for a hike. Look into the eyes of the old lady who needs your help with her groceries at the supermarket. Make eye-contact with that person on the street who could benefit from a wee-bit of encouragement. Hug a tree. The 'prettiness' and impressiveness of these supposedly amazing sophisticated GSUEs is really not that impressive to me, and the sad part for us strategy gamers is that in most instances the glitzy GSUE is being 'bought' at the expense of the 'real reward:' a game that is a challenge to learn and master and thus provides the opportunity, through effort and thought, to achive an honorable win.

Much like other elements of society that are being changed, diluted, or dumbed-down if I may be so bold, graphics are IMHO threatening to kill if not killing real strategy gaming.

[barbarossa2]

A well thought out and well presented post Dr. Evil.

I have to admit, I work hard to not buy games only for their graphical flair, but mostly for their historical value.

I used to love hex based WWII gaming.  However, after I discovered Microsoft's Close Combat series and Panther Games' Highway to the Reich/Conquest of the Agean/Battles for the Bulge, I don't know if I could ever go back.  It was what I had wanted since I was 13.  The same thing happened for me with Total War Medieval.  Basically it destroyed my last inkling of a desire to play anything hex based or turn based. 

I still enjoy turn based strategic gaming, but I never liked spending 45 minutes slaving away over a map with hundreds of chits piled up on it to carry out actions representing 120 seconds of real life (sound like Squad Leader? It is.)

Just one problem with hex based gaming...the 60 degree facing changes (in most games).  Didn't it bother anyone else that there are some directions which you can't make a solid line of troops in?  The total war tactical engine did away with all of this (but cost us other points on realism elsewhere).

It may interest you Dr. Evil, but I never play the strategy side of the TW games anymore.  Generally I only buy it so I can do multi-player online battles.

I purchased CoG:EE for the strategy side of it. And am happy many people enjoy the tactical side of it. But I have to admit, I wish they would have put ALL of their effort into the strategic side. It does seem like it would have value for WCS to prepackage battles like Waterloo, Ligny, Austerlitz, Borodino and more in the game. I would probably even try one of those.

Anyway, here's to WCS! [&o] For giving people what they want (mostly). Because you can't keep all of the people happy all of the time.

[Anthropoid]

Thanks for the response Barbarossa. I'll have to try some of those other one's you mention sometime. I only buy maybe 4 or 5 games a year, and even at that pace feel I play too much!

[ubik]

Wow Anthropoid!
Very interesting points you raise on your posts.

Honestly I am not too worried about the future of "true" strategy computer games. The point is, even if a niche market, there will always be enough of us to motivate talented people to write games with our tastes in mind. These people will most assuredly have a passion for the niche in question, thus the games will be of higher average quality overall than the mainstream ones, even when taking out tastes of the picture.

Also, this graphics rule policy will end sooner or later. We are not that far from the point where the images we see on games match those we see on movies. So, while mainstream is pursuing something that will end by itself at a point in the future (and not that distant), gameplay is something that will continue to evolve, a bit like writing, in my opinion. Gameplay is the art. Graphics are just the cover of the book.

The market is in itself pretty stratified. One knows he should avoid EA games like the plague. One knows one should avoid games based on movie licences like the plague. By looking at the back of the box or at half a dozen of screenshots one knows if the game has potential to look further or not.

I don't believe in that "End of PC games", "End of strategy games", "End of submarine simulator games", etc coined sentences.

Still a remark and a friendly provocation on your win/lose section. I think the "The End" screenshot of games where a player wins or loses is much more related to mainstream games than to niche ones like COG:EE. I think the mainstream begs for an end, like it begs for deterministic experiences where the player's actions are canned through a preset plot (or in more "complex" titles, a plot tree).
Comparing a subset of games (MMORPGs) where the cardinal rule of the business effectively change (the more time you spend on it, the more money the developers make) with "no monthly fee" games to underscore the win/lose vs open ended dichotomy is in my opinion a mistake.


Finally barbarossa2 did a nice remark on the questionable mix between a pure strategy game where tactical actions are abstracted and tactical maps where we move counters around.
My luck is that I love playing that tactical aspect even if abstrated into hexes and you don't!

[ericbabe]

Thank you for the thoughtful review.

It's true that Vivaldi was born in 1678, but he didn't start his professional music career until 1704, and wrote most of his music in the 18th century.  If Patrick O'Brian can have Jack Aubrey playing J.S. Bach in The Ionian Mission, it's perhaps not so unforgiveable to have included some Vivaldi in COG:EE!

Our most out-of-period composer (setting aside Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture") is Jean-Baptiste Lully: he never even made it to the 18th century.  The two Lully pieces we include just sound very good, and don't really sound (to my ear, at least) much different from 18th century court music that I've heard.

We looked long and hard for a better version of La Marseillaise to license affordably, but could find nothing better than the midi-sounding version included in the game at present.&nbsp; If anyone knows of a better version in the public domain, or available for <=$75, we'd be happy to replace the current version with anything better.&nbsp; Similarly, we couldn't find very good versions of "Rule Brittania" and "God Save the Queen."

[Anthropoid]

@ Ubik: you are probably correct that I'm being a bit alarmist, and probably also correct about the inevitable evolution of graphics.
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Not being a hardware fanboy, I'm not sure about the disparity in rate of development of hardware-software in this matter, but, I'm _guessing_ that in a year, maybe 3(?) we may have machines that can allow for games that combine the best of both worlds? Imagine being able to play Civ 4 on maps that are comparable to War in the Pacific, and include details comparble to War in the Pacific!?! [&o]&nbsp;Just imagine that for a second . . . the opportunity to actually be in the driver seat in actually 'designing' a civilization to stand the test of time, but with the geographic, and military detail of a game like WiTP! Right now the main thing blocking that (if I am correct) is the inability of the machines to process so much information in a timely manner, well that and the sheer work of putting together the unit/weapon/technology/pilot/commander/etc. databases . . . but then I suspect if the potential were there in terms of hardware and moddability, the fans would make it happen . . .
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For example, I am in fact a great fan of the Civ series. I know Eric and Eric are also, and I have heard that a few of you guys on here are also fans. Lets face it, it is a colossus in the PC gaming industry overall, and has arguably done a great deal to promote, expand, and progress strategy gaming considered largely.
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On the one hand, Civ4, and in particular the BTS expansion are absolutely stunning works of art/culture. Absolutely amazing achievements.
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But on the other, the lack of anything like realistic scaling, the cartoonish way in which one portrays the same "leader" plucked from one historical period for any given society but who then somehow miraculously survives as the "God" force behind that societies evolution for thousands of years [&:]&nbsp; . . . warrior units who can cover the same geographic area s "Mech Infantry,"&nbsp; . . . "Libraries" that take thousands of years to "build"&nbsp; . . . population growth rates determined by availability of "food," etc., etc. the game is absolutely chock full of unrealisms and suspensions of disbelief that in other genres (e.g., Forge or War in the Pacific) are avoided like the plague. Not to say ANY strategy game can ever be fully 'realistic' but I would guess we could agree realism is a kind of 'sliding scale,' and that a game like WiTP or FoF is 'more' realistic than a game like 'Civ,' or by extension (and presumption, since I'm going just by reviews) the same relative comparison could be made between CoGEE and E:TW.
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Maybe I'm off-base, and I'd love if anyone who actually knows what they're talking about will chime in (hint, hint Eric, and Eric . . .) but I get the impression that building a game like COGEE, which exhibits such a high-degree of success at striving for 'realism,' in the sense of the term I just laid out, is a HIGHLY difficult creative task. You make a change to reduce unrealism here (in-game Factor A), you produce unrealism there (in-game Factor B). You achieve a solution that balances the level of realism in factors A&nbsp;& B and you produce an exploitable difficulty in that the AI as it stands cannot cope. You fix the AI so that it can 'understand' the balance of A & B and you introduce a bug. You change the code so that the bug is no more and you introduce a new Factor C that is unrealistic . . . and on and on, I imagine the weeks and months of design work must proceed in the quest to achieve this form of art. And that is to say nothing of the GSUE, the graphics, the music, the order of battle, the historicity, or for that matter the overarching conceptual design.
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The solution it seems for game makers like Empire TW is simply to make something that looks 'really kewl' but plays like crap, i.e., it is virtually impossible to lose if you are an above-average 12 year old. While Civ4 is definitely not a piece of crap, it too is fairly predictable, and 'pays for' the advanced GSUE with an unrealistically simplified, unscaled, and frankly unfun map/unit/combat system . . . so it took me 500 years to build a "Pikeman" unit and that "unit" gets utterly wiped out in ONE combat, and not only that but virtually EVERY combat results in the utter destruction of one of the combatants, an actual outcome that is fairly rare in world history. Yes I've heard the explanations . . . the unit is an 'abstraction' of the military of the society, and its utter destruction represents the disintegration of that portion of the militaries ability to operate as a coherent and effective combat force, blah, blah. But I just do not buy such explanations. There are too many other elements in Civ (for example) where these "units" are treated as exactly that, some military formation of finite dimensions and characteristics which exists in space and time, and which CEASES to exist in space and time when it dies (e.g., the "promotion" system in Civ, and the unit statistics themselves all lend themselves to interpreting them as _actual_ Divisions, Corps, or Armies, and not as abstractions).
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I have diverged into details here in order to make this point: even though technology may well eventually make it possible to have a game that combines (I) the strategic design elegance of an FoF or a COGEE, or the incredible detail and historical accuracy of a WiTP, or the ingenious combat dynamics of a TOAWIII, or for that matter the sheer reality of an Harpoon, with (II) the cinema-like beguilement of a Civ, or an Empire TW, or a Half Life, etc., this is NO GUARANTEE that the market forces, and the marketer motivations to embark on such a pioneering combination will necessarily emerge in a timely fashion following the onset of such a technological stage. Instead, we may continue to see true strategy games living on as a neglected and under-attended 'niche' market without sufficient market share to embark on such a high-cost and high-risk venture, and meanwhile the 'mainstream' game makers, the 'big guys' with the bankrolls to potentially fund such projects utterly unmotivated to do so for the very same reasons.
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IMHO, an acceptance of the status quo and the ongoing trends in computer game consumer patterns is akin to 'defeatism.' We as strategy gamers MUST be proactive if we want to feel confident that we will for the rest of our lives have great games to play. We must discourage screwball early releases like Ageod's WWI, which arguably might 'kill a golden child in the crib.' There is clearly a brilliant basic design with lots of thoughtfulness and truly pioneering elements in WWI; it was just released before it was all put together. While it is true that the game has sold, and will probably continue to sell, this cannot be better for sales and for the fan base, and for the expansion of the fanbase into the 'mainstream' consumer segment as if the game had been released in as complete and finishe a form as COGEE. Am I say WWI is crap and COGEE is great? No, that is not the point. They are different games, and both have instrinsic flaws, and provide different gaming experiences that cannot be addressed in whole by the other. Like reading Shakespeare and Quixote and Hemmingway each has its merits, and each has its blindspots. The point is that with a fragile niche market, a game that gets punished for being innovative and groundbreaking like WWI is NOT, not, NOT a good thing for our hobby. A game like COGEE that gets picked at for minor trivia when the overall product is truly exceptional is also not a good thing for our hobby. IMO, people defending a trainwreck like Empire TW at the expense of a game or in preference to a game like COGEE is also not a salutary thing for true strategy gaming.
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Maybe I'm being a dogmatist here, and I certainly don't want to squelch individual freedom of thought and expression. But as a social scientist, I know that something like a "buzz" in a fan community is not simply a metaphor. In an age where we can come on here and exchange in a dialogue across time and geographic boundaries, and in which prospective customers are reading right now, I think what we say can have dramatic impacts in the world, and in particular in teh computer gaming communit(ies).

[barbarossa2]

Bump. [:D]
(I think people considering this game need to see that it is a great game and why one hard core gaming fan thinks so).

[Ursa MAior]

I discarded CoG for overcomplexity, EiA for the number of bugs, played Campaigns of Nappy but was not enough grognard for me, bought ETW and while I dont feel ripped off I am not happy either. So I am still looking for a good Grand Strat (ok not good the perfect) nappy game. After reading your essay on it and after reading through all of hard sarge's magnificient AAR's I am on my way to purchase it.  

Edit I mean. Cog: EE cant wait to see.

[barbarossa2]

bump

[06 Maestro]

Barbarossa gave good credit where credit was due. This game is truly a great peice of work.

It has been several years since a new game grabed my attention like this one. I played marathon sittings like I have not done in a long time. I had to take a day off from the game to recover[;)] The graphics are easy on the eyes, making the long matches possible.

Even if someone is not really into this age, they would do well to look into this game. It's possible to do nothing but strategic (political and military) maneuvering and, if you wish, you can also be the general on a very interesting battlefield. This is a great combination.

It is also fairly easy to get into without making a great study of the rules-not to say one should not read them all in good time. (like I will-all in good time).

[barbarossa2]

Maestro,
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It really is the best game I have played in ages.&nbsp; It is the first and ONLY game that gives me a feel what it was like to deal with power politics of the Napoleonic age.&nbsp; I think by far and away the best single feature of the game is its incredible treaty system.&nbsp; Tell you friends about the game so that there is a chance we can have stuff like this around in the future. &nbsp; Every game we buy is an investment in the future and tells developers what we want to see more of.&nbsp;
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-B2

[jscott991]

Putting your criticisms of the game in a small font really serves only to discredit the over all bias of your review.
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I appreciated the information, but squinting to see the negative points left me a bit annoyed.

[barbarossa2]

Oh!  I can make them big. 

But I thought that people would get bored.

*fixed*

My other, larger issues with the game which I feel are slightly more objectively based were in a standard font. And I thought that was enough. The stuff that was at the bottom was really a pure matter of subjective opinion which I thought enough people would disagree with that it didn't even merit full sized print.