Chiarimenti di Kieran Bridgen.......

www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=325960&page=3

To try and take some of the criticism / comments / criticism in order and hopefully shed a little light.

Battle AI - We've improved the battle AI for Napoleon. Improvements include committing to melee when more appropriate, using height terrain to better advantage. More committed behaviour, multi tasking on plans and improved siege behavior. Will it be the perfect battle AI? No it will not. AI, like every aspect of development is an iterative process. It will be an AI capable of offering a level of challenge to all players. We recognize our top level players will really only find ultimate tactical satisfaction fighting against other people, which is what some of the new multiplayer game modes are for, particularly drop-in battles. Empire's BAI is a difficult beast. Some users experience certain behaviour where others do not. For example, I have not encountered the melee bug since patch 1.5. This is not to say it doesn't still exist for some, but the majority reporting of this problem is gone.

Modding Empire - Empire had some problems on release, a fact of which we are all aware. As with any software, there are still some remaining issues now. Our focus on release and immediately afterward was not on providing tools for the community but on stability and performance patching. We chose that avenue for maximum benefit for the maximum number of our players. Empire is a moddable game, this is proven by the fact that mods exist for it. We appreciate some people saying it could be more moddable. Of course the ultimate evolution of this is open source software, something CA does not currently do or intend to pursue. We're always looking at how we can make our games more 'mod friendly' as we know this adds an incredible amount of value to TW games. So it's a balancing act, one we continue to evaluate. We can put development time into mod tools or into game polish, and given that we want Napoleon to be our most polished TW to date, our effort is going into that. Again, its a balance and one where we have to chose where to commit resource.

Console games - We have a fully fledged console team here at CA, it is a seperate entity to the TW team, although naturally the two interact. We are staffed to work on two formats simultaneously. So please do not be concerned about us moving fully to console or abandoning TW. This is not our plan and never has been. Also, as a point of note, the UK studio did not make Stormrise.

Communication - We genuinely try our best to communicate to our fans as often as possible and to address the important issues where we can. As you can imagine we are incredibly busy, communication is important and we don't take it lightly. Hence me being here. It is not lost on me or anyone else that players pay our wages.

You guys lie and I'll hate you no matter what - Two points on this one. We know how much hype and excitement there was around Empire, and we know that many people initially felt let down when they had technical issues. We are gamers too. We love games and we play them, when we get excited about something and it doesn't meet our expectations its disappointing. For some of you, this was the end and you'll abandon the franchise as a result. For those that do this, we're sorry we lost you.
What I'd ask is that we are judged by our actions.
We patched Empire six times in almost as many months including hotfixes. We continued to support it both technically, and thematically with unit packs and an extra campaign. This wasn't merciless profiteering, it was an attempt to expand the universe and offer more value. We then ran the Multi Player Beta as promised. With all that said, you cannot buy fan loyalty, you earn it, and we know that. I hope for those of you that have decided you're unsure, we can earn it back. Certainly that's the focus with Napoleon.

Fan 'art' of me - Is printed and put on my desk. Your effort is not wasted.

Kind regards,
Kieran