CTGW expansion ?

[operating]

As much as I get BS with the CTGW management, I have to wonder why they did not try to do an expansion instead of another patch? First off the expansion could have done everything another patch would have accomplished and perhaps more, but here is the catch: The expansion would have some kind of customer cost, in-other-words a payment. It seemed that CTGW was not making the owners the money they expected, however, I thought an expansion would sweeten the deal for them to be active with the game and make a lot of current and new customers happy to have a new lease on life with CTGW... What do you think?

[Rongor]

Sadly the missing response to a thread like this would alone influence me as a developer enough to drop any idea of ever touching the game again.

What I don't understand is why they risk to split up communities by offering more than one single gathering point of communication. CTGW players may end their efforts to get in touch with the community or the devs already in either the steam forum, the slitherine board and the matrixgames forum. I guess many players don't make it into all the three of those forums, also consider how many steam customers don't even have an idea of "the forum" being in fact outside the steam boards.
Slitherine and matrixgames (which are basically the same meanwhile) split up community efforts and information on their two parallel boards. It is almost if they intentionally try to confuse forum visitors, to reduce the risk of facing a gathering of unified customers playing the same game. The result is less motivation for players to join any community, since it is not clear which of the boards is "the correct" one.

[Robotron]

@Rongor: thanks for expressing it so clearly, I'm in complete agreement.

*edit* It would be nice to hear a clear statement from Slitherine whether any more patches/hotfixes are in the tubes or if we are left to modding the game ourselves.

In the latter case I'd be glad to to hear how the ".ai" files in \data\scripts\AI can be editied since opening them in an editor like Notepad++ only produces scrambled characters (these are no standard lua-textfiles). At least my last crash-log referred to one of these files (namely "targeting_and_attack.ai") so I'm under the impression the game uses these for calculating the AI-moves.

[operating]

The one you should contact is johnnybravo, he has been or had been the lead programmer (only) for CTGW, most if not all changes to the game went through him. Try using PM to him, it's possible he will write you back, it's been several months since he has responded otherwise. Good luck with doing a MOD.

Secondly, Kirk23 has produced a MOD and is constructing another MOD presently, he also has been on the development team, he is listed as designer in game credits, but has been the more progressive of the team, so you may contact him also, he's easier to contact at the Matrix CTGW forum....

In answer to this:

In the latter case I'd be glad to to hear how the ".ai" files in \data\scripts\AI can be editied since opening them in an editor like Notepad++ only produces scrambled characters (these are no standard lua-textfiles). At least my last crash-log referred to one of these files (namely "targeting_and_attack.ai") so I'm under the impression the game uses these for calculating the AI-moves.

[IainMcNeil]

Hi guys

we know community fragmentation is an issue. The problem initially was that we had no universal login and we did not want to force someone who came from Slitherine to register an account on matrix for support and vice versa. This meant we had 2 forums.

We now have a universal login so you can use the same username & pw on both sites. This has allowed us to run one forum per game for recent releases. Have a look at Scourge of War Waterloo for example. It has no forum on Slitherine, and instead redirects you to Matrix. However we cant do this for existing forums with existing posts without losing the posts from one forum.

Some older forums do not have regular visit from developers and if you have any problems contact support and they'll chase up the developer for you.

Hope that clarifies why things work the way they do as and how we;re improving them. Thanks!

[operating]

Hi guys

we know community fragmentation is an issue. The problem initially was that we had no universal login and we did not want to force someone who came from Slitherine to register an account on matrix for support and vice versa. This meant we had 2 forums.

We now have a universal login so you can use the same username & pw on both sites. This has allowed us to run one forum per game for recent releases. Have a look at Scourge of War Waterloo for example. It has no forum on Slitherine, and instead redirects you to Matrix. However we cant do this for existing forums with existing posts without losing the posts from one forum.

Some older forums do not have regular visit from developers and if you have any problems contact support and they'll chase up the developer for you.

Hope that clarifies why things work the way they do as and how we;re improving them. Thanks!

Hello Iain,

Can understand that you have a job to do, which includes public relations with the customers and I am sure I and just about every member here respect your efforts. Nobody wants to feel they are just being patronized. Don't get me wrong: I love this game CTGW. I love it for it works for me inspite of all it's imperfections, however, if it did not work for me, or was unworkable in any form, my love for the game would be gone and would be replaced with a bitter beast of emotions that would not spare anyone associated with CTGW my rage. Just went back and counted how many CTGW customers who cannot get their games to work-function-get past CTDs-ect. that have posted on this forum since the beginning of summer, to date numbering at 13 paying customers, there was only 1 case that was resolved successfully with the help of Slitherine Staff. That 13 cannot play in SP and I'll probably never get the chance to matched up with them in MP. Personally, I do not consider the game as being "Old", it been just over 2 and half years since it's release. Your Slitherine Staff has tried to help customers, but it seems they are outside looking in knowing they cannot help many of these customers, because they know it's something only the dev's can fix, however, the dev's of CTGW are running away from helping the people they have just taken money from, and YOU. Sorry, I almost laughed out loud when you said you would chase the developers down. "Are you Kidding"? This is not the only forum where customers are having unworkable problems with CTGW, God knows how many others there are. Is it that Slitherine does not care that they are selling a product that is going to fail on day one for a customer or customers? What's that called? It's easy to tell how long a troubled customer has had the game by the number of posts they have, often in the single digits, then are stuck there and give up. The thing is, "I have a heart and feel real bad for these members, who cannot enjoy their investments".

Yours truly, Bob

[Sabratha]

In the latter case I'd be glad to to hear how the ".ai" files in \data\scripts\AI can be editied since opening them in an editor like Notepad++ only produces scrambled characters (these are no standard lua-textfiles). At least my last crash-log referred to one of these files (namely "targeting_and_attack.ai") so I'm under the impression the game uses these for calculating the AI-moves.

You stand correct by what I learned. I've been testing some events and got a surprising mid-gamer crash, so I naturlaly expected the events to be responsible. However upon examining the log, I found it was the AI file. I reloaded the game from autosave, ended the turn same way as before (no evenmt changes at all) and behold no crash.

[Robotron]

@Sabratha: Sorry, but I'm puzzled about what exactly you are trying to imply by your post.

Whenever I had my game (PC Version) crash due to that naval AI- bug I mentioned in the Tech-Support-subforum, reloading the game from autosave and ending it the same way produced the exact same crash according to the log (tested that about 20 times).

[Sabratha]

@Sabratha: Sorry, but I'm puzzled about what exactly you are trying to imply by your post.

Whenever I had my game (PC Version) crash due to that naval AI- bug I mentioned in the Tech-Support-subforum, reloading the game from autosave and ending it the same way produced the exact same crash according to the log (tested that about 20 times).

I'm trying to imply the following:
1) The crash was not caused by the event file.
2) It was caused by the unmodified AI file.
3) The bug does not have a 100% repro rate - I reloaded the same autosave, pressed end turn and the bug did not occur again. Hence bug depends on a factor taht is random, or at least semi-random and does not reach 100% repro.

So perhaps its not the same bug, as your bug has a 100% repro rate under autosave reload.

Maybe I'm lucky, but I have yet to experience a 100% repro crash bug in CTGW. I experience it all the time in Commander: Europe at War (when playign as the allies against axis AI).