View Full Version : Creative Assembly Will we finally see realistic Battlefields?
The question is quite simple, will we finally see realistic cliffs, mountain ranges, rivers, woodlands, random ditches, swamps and huge loads of scrub, like it is on real landscapes.
The thing with TW has always been the over-clean battlefields. I do agree it makes playing the game easier, but it doesn't make it very realistic. Such terrain features played a huge role in most major conflicts.
Scrub provided visual cover and allowed for ambushes, while difficulties in terrain allowed for tactical exploits, like the Romans defeated Macedonians.
Simply put, will we have random landscape elements that make it more realistic than these smooth almost polished battlefields?
Examples:
In Pydna, the Phalanx couldn't really operate well in difficult terrain, which allowed the Romans to get inside the phalanx and slaughter the Pikemen.
http://163.238.8.180/~jshean/pydna.jpg
Some random:
Cliffs (http://www.destination360.com/europe/ireland/images/s/ireland-cliffs-of-moher.jpg)
Rocky Desert (http://www.cosc.brocku.ca/~vwojcik/sahara/R1.17%20Terrain!.jpg)
Desert (http://www.cosc.brocku.ca/~vwojcik/sahara/R1.16%20CdL%20Oued+Terrain.jpg)
Of course, reaching such level of detail as in real life is out of the question, but to see more variety in terrain, attempting to at least imitate real terrain would be just plain awesome.
hellenes
03-22-2008, 15:32
The question is quite simple, will we finally see realistic cliffs, mountain ranges, rivers, woodlands, random ditches, swamps and huge loads of scrub, like it is on real landscapes.
The thing with TW has always been the over-clean battlefields. I do agree it makes playing the game easier, but it doesn't make it very realistic. Such terrain features played a huge role in most major conflicts.
Scrub provided visual cover and allowed for ambushes, while difficulties in terrain allowed for tactical exploits, like the Romans defeated Macedonians.
Simply put, will we have random landscape elements that make it more realistic than these smooth almost polished battlefields?
Examples:
In Pydna, the Phalanx couldn't really operate well in difficult terrain, which allowed the Romans to get inside the phalanx and slaughter the Pikemen.
http://163.238.8.180/~jshean/pydna.jpg
Some random:
Cliffs (http://www.destination360.com/europe/ireland/images/s/ireland-cliffs-of-moher.jpg)
Rocky Desert (http://www.cosc.brocku.ca/~vwojcik/sahara/R1.17%20Terrain!.jpg)
Desert (http://www.cosc.brocku.ca/~vwojcik/sahara/R1.16%20CdL%20Oued+Terrain.jpg)
Of course, reaching such level of detail as in real life is out of the question, but to see more variety in terrain, attempting to at least imitate real terrain would be just plain awesome.
Medieval 2 has ALOT richer enviroments than RTW...so I guess ETW will just get better...
Furious Mental
03-22-2008, 16:28
Supposedly your soldiers can make use of obstacles, cover, structures, etc, so I would expect the answer is yes.
Elmar Bijlsma
03-23-2008, 02:34
I hope the hedges from MTW make a comeback. They didn't do anything (or at least I don't think they did) but they looked great. I always "roleplayed" as if they did have an effect. So I got my units to defend behind hedges, battle fiercely over them, etc.
Immersion is a wonderful thing.
In the old STW editor you could even 'corrupt' maps every now and then and make men sink partly into the ground, just like a swamp ~:)
Orda Khan
03-23-2008, 15:15
In the old STW editor you could even 'corrupt' maps every now and then and make men sink partly into the ground, just like a swamp ~:)
.....And ford rivers!!! Ob_River Crossing.
I remember a 2v2 battle on the Fakeserver against you and Yuuki. My ally, Kansuke, was curious and sent a unit of cavalry into the river. I typed "Yep, you can cross the rivers" :)
.......Orda
Yes, fording rivers.
I recall seeing a pond where you could hide a whole unit below water ~:)
Now that I come to think of it, I never saw the 'unit is capable of swimming across river' tag on any unit in M2TW........sad, it really was a nice thing you could do in previous titles....
Veho Nex
03-24-2008, 23:25
Previous titles?? It was only in Barbarian Invasion where you could swim, though it was a nice addition.
Far as I remember, it was possible in RTW and MTW as well........
Hello asj_india,
It sure wasn't an option in MTW. It was possible to create 'fordable' water in STW. Iirc, that wasn't possible anymore in MTW, but not sure about that, as I wasn't that knee deep into maps there.
Fordable water was an option in RTW, didn't one of the demo battles between Hannibal and the Romans include a river that was crossed by infantry?
Swimming units was listed as selling feature for BI.
Rhyfelwyr
03-25-2008, 14:41
One thing I do not hope to see in ETW is the ridiculous mountain battles that seem so common in M2TW, especially against the Mongols if they arrive near Yerevan. I hate being the defender, only to face the attacker coming down a massive slope and my archers being useless. As if armies would meet halfway up a mountain...
Such battles would be even worse with the gunpowder units of ETW. Please give us sensible locations for battles.
General_Someone
03-26-2008, 02:53
Battles on mountains are annoying and stupid-ish, I have to agree with you there. And again what army would climb a cliff so steep and high that no sane person would or probably could climb.
^^^
To get away from those pesky hussars of course. ~:joker:
Orda Khan
03-26-2008, 10:45
One thing I do not hope to see in ETW is the ridiculous mountain battles that seem so common in M2TW, especially against the Mongols if they arrive near Yerevan. I hate being the defender, only to face the attacker coming down a massive slope and my archers being useless. As if armies would meet halfway up a mountain...
Such battles would be even worse with the gunpowder units of ETW. Please give us sensible locations for battles.
Have you noticed that practically all the RTW and M2TW battle maps feature a slope, even on so called flat maps? And this slope invariably has you at the lower end. But I agree about the hilly maps, I fought one battle where my units were split over impassable terrain and I could not join the two forces. Worse still, my enemy could not get to me either, I had to quit the battle and hence the loss and all that goes with it :thumbsdown: :wall:
It sure wasn't an option in MTW. It was possible to create 'fordable' water in STW. Iirc, that wasn't possible anymore in MTW, but not sure about that, as I wasn't that knee deep into maps there.
No it wasn't possible in MTW, if you remember, we tried to recreate Ob_River Crossing. In STW and MTW, river maps required rivers to bisect the map left to right otherwise the map would corrupt. The many tributaries in Ob_River Crossing created a corruption that did not impede unit movement and therefore we saw units wading across water that was sometimes shoulder deep. MTW maps did not like certain features. I tried to make a Great Wall of China map, with the idea of taking artillery to breach the wall before attack and all sorts of weird stuff went on. Even when I made breaks in the wall, it gave me problems.
It's been a while since my map making days but I'm almost certain MTW automatically introduced a bridge to a river map if it had not been included
......Orda
It sure wasn't an option in MTW. It was possible to create 'fordable' water in STW. Iirc, that wasn't possible anymore in MTW, but not sure about that, as I wasn't that knee deep into maps there.
My bad, I remembered wrongly. But it was a nice feature in RTW....don't know why did they have to cut it out in M2TW.....
Far as the hilly terrain problem is concerned, what I've noticed is, that on places where hills are actually depicted on the world map, like the area between Spain and France, the hills on the battle map are quite realistic.....they do cause some trouble with the canons and ranged units but that bit only adds realism to it. Real trouble is with the freak cliffs which appear out of nowhere, skew the unit animation......the paths are all so steep that it's impossible to imagine anything going up and down.
I think it would be nice if only light infantry had the option to cross mountainous areas and fight battles there. I think this would be quite sensible as I believe it was quite common for small bands of guerillas to "take to the hills", but it seems insane for any commander with large quantities of cavalry or artillery to attempt to fight a battle halfway up a slope that only a skilled mountaineer could hope to climb. I often find my artillery starts deployed in positions from which it not only can't fire, but can't even move because the slope is too steep in every direction, which makes me wonder how it got there in the first place.
As for swimming units, I also miss them, but I wonder if maybe they were left out because most of the units in M2TW were so heavily armoured as to have had no chance of being able to swim? Fords appear in both RTW and M2TW, as the river crossing present when no roads have been built in the province.
.. but I wonder if maybe they were left out because most of the units in M2TW were so heavily armoured as to have had no chance of being able to swim?
I've wondered about that too. It certainly makes sense for the knights. But what about the peasants, archers and other light infantry? Were those people generally unable to swim in that era?
I would have thought so. I seem to remember hearing that many sailors on sailing ships were unable to swim. If they didn't deem it necessary to learn then I would be surprised if landlubbing medieval soldiers would.
I do hope they bring back multiple river crossings though. The Battle of the Boyne, for example, hinged around just such a situation, with James Stewart being forced to split his forces to defend two separate river fords simulaneously. And I remember my greatest ever victory over the Mongols coming when they elected to send their entire weight against one bridge, allowing my Almohad light cavalry to race around via the other bridge and surround them, and annihilate them to the last man.
JeromeGrasdyke
04-02-2008, 12:02
The Battle of the Boyne, for example, hinged around just such a situation, with James Stewart being forced to split his forces to defend two separate river fords simulaneously.
Aah, good old Jimmy Stewart. I remember when he went to Washington...
Anyway, the answer to the question of when there will be some land screenshots is "soon". And I wouldn't say that if it wasn't true ;)
there will be some land screenshots is "soon". And I wouldn't say that if it wasn't true ;)
You make it sound as if we were about to experience some serious eyecandy :)
As Empire is on a new engine and all, I trust that the graphical leap will be significant (while still retaining a reasonable FPS!!).
I do hope they bring back multiple river crossings though. Did they get taken out of M2TW? The 2nd crossings are there in RTW but I've never seen the AI use them.
Generals_Bodyguard
04-03-2008, 05:03
You make it sound as if we were about to experience some serious eyecandy :)
As Empire is on a new engine and all, I trust that the graphical leap will be significant (while still retaining a reasonable FPS!!).
Important factor to the success of the game. I dont want another Crysis. We hope the new engine will be more efficiant than the older one and utilise multiple core for better performance?
Anyone from CA care to give us information on the technical aspect of the new engine?:yes:
Rhyfelwyr
04-03-2008, 19:24
Did they get taken out of M2TW? The 2nd crossings are there in RTW but I've never seen the AI use them.
Well I've never seen any in M2TW. I hope they are there in ETW though...
Another thing I'd like to know about it is the size of the battlefields.
In M2TW, using late artillery in a 1 vs 1 battle meant, that there was very little room left to manuver on the field without bringing your soldiers in the artillery range.
Either way, in ETW, battlefields should be considerably bigger, and battles should last for a longer time. That way, there'll be more time to actually workout and use the situations developing in the battle.
Lt Nevermind
04-06-2008, 15:50
...I wonder if maybe they were left out because most of the units in M2TW were so heavily armoured as to have had no chance of being able to swim?I've wondered about that too. It certainly makes sense for the knights. But what about the peasants, archers and other light infantry? Were those people generally unable to swim in that era?
I believe there was a problem with this otherwise nice feature, namely, units that were able to swim across rivers in BI were unable to cross bridges. Perhaps this was one of the reasons why the feature was dropped.
Elmar Bijlsma
04-07-2008, 00:09
Or maybe it was because the whole swimming across rivers thing wasn't something that happened much at all during battles.
I've wondered about that too. It certainly makes sense for the knights. But what about the peasants, archers and other light infantry? Were those people generally unable to swim in that era?
Only witches can swim. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrzMhU_4m-g)
;P
Furious Mental
04-11-2008, 18:03
The number of battles have historically been won by one side pushing the other into a river is very large. The number of battles where one side has avoided defeat or at least slaughter by swimming away, to my knowledge, is nil. So that would suggest to me that swimming was not a common military skill.
Well, we don't have pushing into the river feature wither now that you mention it.........why did I not think of it before.......pushing 'em into the rivers and off the cliffs. I'd love to do the 300 bit 'These men look thirsty......' ~D
I hope the hedges from MTW make a comeback. They didn't do anything (or at least I don't think they did) but they looked great. I always "roleplayed" as if they did have an effect. So I got my units to defend behind hedges, battle fiercely over them, etc.
Immersion is a wonderful thing.
Seconded. I had forgotten about the hedges. That made playing in farmland so much more epic. I hope something like that can be implemented. I can see ambushes going a lot smoother, but I'm not sure how effective a row of bushes would be against a volley of arrows.
I think CA have said something about buildings on the battlefield being garrisonable, hopefully this will include troops being able to hide behind walls and hedgerows.
Regarding pushing armies into rivers; is this not sort of modeled already, in that if you defeat an army an they have no line of retreat on the campaign map, they die? I know this is true with ships, I imagine it is with armies as well.
Flying Pig
04-25-2008, 18:47
Is that image free-use? It's in the Roman Army by Peter Connoly on the first page of the first section.
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