Is the Age of Charlemagne worth it?

[Ichangedmyname]

I think I would like it and see that it is on sale now. I plan to buy the dlc factions I dont have as they are so cheep and I am addicted to attila as I got it on the summer sale and just started playing last month. The reason I ask if Age of Charlemagne is worth it is I see alot of mixed reviews many love it, but alot of reviews say it is not that good.

[Mile pro Libertate]

It's very good.

Don't put much stock into the reviews, as CA has been review bombed for months now. Attila base game, for example, has a 37% rating right now.

[Ichangedmyname]

I think I will give it a shot cant go wrong for just 5 bucks.

[Clovis Sangrail]

I play about half campaign game and half AoC, and I lean toward AoC.

A lot of the whiners are getting their asses kicked by the game because they have not caught on to the fact that Attila is not just a battle game. You have to manage the economy and non-military aspects as well.

Those wars do not pay for themselves.

[Mile pro Libertate]

Originally posted by Clovis Sangrail:

I play about half campaign game and half AoC, and I lean toward AoC.

A lot of the whiners are getting their asses kicked by the game because they have not caught on to the fact that Attila is not just a battle game. You have to manage the economy and non-military aspects as well.

Those wars do not pay for themselves.

Yes, I would add that AoC can be quite challenging early game in the economic, pubic order and diplomacy aspects, often more than Attila base. It depends a lot on faction choice and difficulty setting though. Playing as Charlemagne's faction on Legendary seems to get many people frustrated. As Clovis alludes, you can't just run from battle to battle, kicking ass and expecting to win, unless you drop difficulty down to Normal or Easy.

AoC is more of a thinking man's campaign, at least as Franks, Westphalia, Mercia and Lombards. Factions of Asturias and Cordoba are much easier however. Avars and Danes are basically in the middle.

But yeah, overall, AoC is a great value. It refines the Attila mechanics, especially battle mechanics and faction politics. The devs also did a great job crafting an immersive environment, with a new UI, missions, historical events, dilemmas, etc., all of which really exude the 9th century context.

The biggest weakness of AoC, is that the momentum to the campaign really peters out c. 60 turns. There isn't any overarching objective to the campaign other than to raise your imperium level, so once the early missions are accomplished, and your faction has achieved a good power ranking, things can get boring. But for 50 to 80 turns, it can be quite engaging.

[ᚺᛉᚹᛊᚱᛒᚱᛊᚤᚢ]

its just a reskin of the vanilla same copy paste units and annoying campaign features and you would expect more variety but nope most units recolor of vanilla too theres some mods that add more medieval looking units but theres nothing to get rid of the bs campaign limitations

p.s if you interested in medieval era might wanna wait until they release the medieval mod, it will be free and probably 10x better than this crap reskin mod charlemagne and real medieval as we know it not this early era bs with barbarians that have fancy banners

rome 2 apparently too has a medieval mod in the making.....

[Barrelz]

Originally posted by Mile pro Libertate:

It's very good.

Don't put much stock into the reviews, as CA has been review bombed for months now. Attila base game, for example, has a 37% rating right now.

I don't think that is completely down to review bombings. Considering that steam uses an algorithm to detect and remove review bombs and that this game runs like ♥♥♥♥ and has been forgotten by all but the hardiest dangle berries. I would argue that the steam reviews is a pretty good representation of popular opinion.

That being said, AoC is one of the very few good reasons to play this game. I enjoyed it immensely.

[Mile pro Libertate]

Originally posted by Barrelz:

Originally posted by Mile pro Libertate:

It's very good.

Don't put much stock into the reviews, as CA has been review bombed for months now. Attila base game, for example, has a 37% rating right now.

I don't think that is completely down to review bombings. Considering that steam uses an algorithm to detect and remove review bombs and that this game runs like ♥♥♥♥ and has been forgotten by all but the hardiest dangle berries. I would argue that the steam reviews is a pretty good representation of popular opinion.

That being said, AoC is one of the very few good reasons to play this game. I enjoyed it immensely.

The reason I say it's review bombing, is four indicators, or factors:

1) The recent nature of the low scores. Shogun 2, for example: since 2011, it retained a score in the 80s-90s, but in the last couple months, recent reviews are down to the 30s. Why would a game be considered good for well over eight years, then all of a sudden coming towards the ninth year, people "figured out" that it sucked?

2) The scores are now uniformly failing grade. It doesn't matter if the all-time average was like 73%, such as with Attila, or like 92%, such as with Shogun 2, because, for some reason, now all of them average in the 40-50% range.

3) The nature of the Thrones of Brittiania scores. It's score hasn't budged much from the release cycle scores, whereas the other titles are all getting hit with scoring way different than before, as I said in point 1.

Thrones is also the least populated, modern TW. The other TWs have more presence, and more population, meaning that bombing had to necessarily be more intensive to get the desired result.

Bombers were happy getting Thrones to simply reach failing grade, and could do so relatively easily, because it was a new release with low population. There was a "self fulfilling prophecy" effect in play, i.e. abysmal scores on day 1 kept people from buying Thrones, which kept numbers down, which made every bomber count for more proportionally, which made the score even more abysmal, etc.

Because Thrones is sparsely populated, there isn't as much attention on it either, so it's not worth as much in terms of effort to bomb it now. Finally, they got the all-time score to "Mixed Reviews" with Thrones, because of the aforesaid factors. Basically then, with Thrones it is considered "mission accomplished" at 55% or so, but the other titles still retain decent or even excellent all-time scores, so bombing has to be really, really intense and sustained to get their all-time scores to come down, i.e. the mission isn't accomplished yet.

4) The rhetoric of the bombers themselves in relation to the scoring. This ties in with point 3 above, which is that all of the bombers giving Thrones the absolute lowest score they could, did so with the rhetoric that it was the 'worst TW ever,' or something to that effect. The thing is, Thrones now has a higher recent review average than all of the other TWs that were directly compared and deemed superior, namely Attila, Rome 2, and Shogun 2. So how could the "worst one" of this group of four titles end up with the highest recent rating, while also being the least populated and having the shortest tenure? That makes absolutely no sense, according to the bombers' own rhetoric.

[Mc]

Originally posted by Mile pro Libertate:

Why would a game be considered good for well over eight years, then all of a sudden coming towards the ninth year, people "figured out" that it sucked?

I think you have different interpretation of steam ranking. For me thumbs up/down do not mean if game is good or bad, but whether I would recommend it or not, which are too very different things.

So in past people would recommend Shogun 2 because it was (and still is) great game. But today they will not recommend it (thumbs down) because it is old game selling for premium price, possibly even higher than it was sold in the past. There could be other aspects for thumbs down despite game being good (not saying they apply to Shogun 2) - for example bad customer support, bad company practices (like including spying software, out of steam verification requiring 3rd party account etc.) and so on.

[Imnuktam]

Originally posted by Mc:

Originally posted by Mile pro Libertate:

Why would a game be considered good for well over eight years, then all of a sudden coming towards the ninth year, people "figured out" that it sucked?

I think you have different interpretation of steam ranking. For me thumbs up/down do not mean if game is good or bad, but whether I would recommend it or not, which are too very different things.

So in past people would recommend Shogun 2 because it was (and still is) great game. But today they will not recommend it (thumbs down) because it is old game selling for premium price, possibly even higher than it was sold in the past. There could be other aspects for thumbs down despite game being good (not saying they apply to Shogun 2) - for example bad customer support, bad company practices (like including spying software, out of steam verification requiring 3rd party account etc.) and so on.

His point is that since the netease deal and the price hike people are going out of their way to rate every CA title down regardless of if the game is good are not. Not sure why or even how you guys are arguing the fact. Its like you are arguing that water isnt actually that wet.

[Barrelz]

Originally posted by Imnuktam:

Originally posted by Mc:

I think you have different interpretation of steam ranking. For me thumbs up/down do not mean if game is good or bad, but whether I would recommend it or not, which are too very different things.

So in past people would recommend Shogun 2 because it was (and still is) great game. But today they will not recommend it (thumbs down) because it is old game selling for premium price, possibly even higher than it was sold in the past. There could be other aspects for thumbs down despite game being good (not saying they apply to Shogun 2) - for example bad customer support, bad company practices (like including spying software, out of steam verification requiring 3rd party account etc.) and so on.

His point is that since the netease deal and the price hike people are going out of their way to rate every CA title down regardless of if the game is good are not. Not sure why or even how you guys are arguing the fact. Its like you are arguing that water isnt actually that wet.

But steam will actively monitor and nullify any review bombs, so it's not really representative, even if people did do that.

In all honesty, if people are annoyed with a dev/publisher, then why not show their displeasure in the only power us consumers have; reviews.

Personally, I don't review, mainly because I am lazy. But I do take note of negative reviews and then look at what the problem was/is. I then use common sense to sift the wheat from the chaff.


A whopping percentage of the neg reviews for this title is actually performance related. Also, pricing (and dlc policies) has always been a thorn in some Total war fans sides, I guess this was just another straw that broke some camels backs.

[Mc]

Originally posted by Barrelz:

But steam will actively monitor and nullify any review bombs, so it's not really representative, even if people did do that.

In all honesty, if people are annoyed with a dev/publisher, then why not show their displeasure in the only power us consumers have; reviews.

Yes, I don't agree with steam doing this. Everyone who purchased game should have equal say. I've lived in totalitarian regime and I'm against such methods. Today they silence them, tomorrow they might silence you.

As for me I don't care that much what overall rating is. I read what people actually say (in reviews, discussions) and depending on that I draw conclusion. I've bought some games with very negative rating when I concluded I will probably like them anyway (like SOTS2).

The overall "score" might not be representative for game quality, but it is valid feedback for the developers, publisher and other potential customers. People might not like reasons why others don't recommend it, but they should respect their right to say so (and they have right to do their vote as well).

[Mile pro Libertate]

Originally posted by Barrelz:

Originally posted by Imnuktam:

His point is that since the netease deal and the price hike people are going out of their way to rate every CA title down regardless of if the game is good are not. Not sure why or even how you guys are arguing the fact. Its like you are arguing that water isnt actually that wet.

But steam will actively monitor and nullify any review bombs, so it's not really representative, even if people did do that.

In all honesty, if people are annoyed with a dev/publisher, then why not show their displeasure in the only power us consumers have; reviews.

Personally, I don't review, mainly because I am lazy. But I do take note of negative reviews and then look at what the problem was/is. I then use common sense to sift the wheat from the chaff.


A whopping percentage of the neg reviews for this title is actually performance related. Also, pricing (and dlc policies) has always been a thorn in some Total war fans sides, I guess this was just another straw that broke some camels backs.

Originally posted by Mc:

Originally posted by Barrelz:

But steam will actively monitor and nullify any review bombs, so it's not really representative, even if people did do that.

In all honesty, if people are annoyed with a dev/publisher, then why not show their displeasure in the only power us consumers have; reviews.

Yes, I don't agree with steam doing this. Everyone who purchased game should have equal say. I've lived in totalitarian regime and I'm against such methods. Today they silence them, tomorrow they might silence you.

As for me I don't care that much what overall rating is. I read what people actually say (in reviews, discussions) and depending on that I draw conclusion. I've bought some games with very negative rating when I concluded I will probably like them anyway (like SOTS2).

The overall "score" might not be representative for game quality, but it is valid feedback for the developers, publisher and other potential customers. People might not like reasons why others don't recommend it, but they should respect their right to say so (and they have right to do their vote as well).

Both of you guys are putting forward arguments for doing review bombing. Example:

Originally posted by Mc:

The overall "score" might not be representative for game quality, but it is valid feedback for the developers, publisher and other potential customers. People might not like reasons why others don't recommend it, but they should respect their right to say so...

That ^ is literally describing what a review bomb is. And it also proves my whole point, that people can't really trust the user score to see how good or bad the game or dlc is, because the scores are not strictly about the quality of the game or dlc.


I'm saying that the TW Steam scores have been bombed, and both of you guys are giving reasons for why that is justifiable to you. These are two, separate issues though.

[Mc]

Originally posted by Mile pro Libertate:

And it also proves my whole point, that people can't really trust the user score to see how good or bad the game or dlc is, because the scores are not strictly about the quality of the game or dlc.

Of course, but it is a problem of the people who don't understand what the thumbs up/down mean. It is not score, it is recommend or not. Two values (yes/no) are not enough to determine quality of game anyway, for that we would need scale (0-10 or at least 0-5).

Sometimes I don't review simply because I don't want to give extreme yes/no, but rather something in the middle (very few games are so good/bad that they would deserve strict yes or no).

[Mile pro Libertate]

Originally posted by Mc:

Originally posted by Mile pro Libertate:

And it also proves my whole point, that people can't really trust the user score to see how good or bad the game or dlc is, because the scores are not strictly about the quality of the game or dlc.

Of course, but it is a problem of the people who don't understand what the thumbs up/down mean. It is not score, it is recommend or not. Two values (yes/no) are not enough to determine quality of game anyway, for that we would need scale (0-10 or at least 0-5).

Sometimes I don't review simply because I don't want to give extreme yes/no, but rather something in the middle (very few games are so good/bad that they would deserve strict yes or no).

I also don't review on Steam, partly for similar reason.

The main point is that the Steam score is pretty useless for someone trying to see what the quality of a title is. This thumb up-down aspect is just one more reason why.

As a result, I just ignore the Steam score altogether when looking at a title.

[Pharaoh]

On review bombing a word of advice:I have recently learned to ignore most negative opinions on the internet as apparently you can risk getting a community ban for calling the bad behaviour out (i lost total acess to the steam workshop and couldn't even post screenshots) i dont bother too much with the social aspects of steam since then so think twice before letting people you hate live inside your head rent free revenge isnt worth the price also dont spam advertisements of your workshop mods just because your not getting the views you want either moderators dislike that too and that also contributed to the ban.



Signed an reformed troll.