Rodhern
02-20-2001, 02:00
What would really make Shogun Total War great would be editable multiplayer battles. Why? Because it ultimately leads to a diversity of innovative multiplayer campaign modes! That is the short answer, for those interested please read on http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif .
By Editable Multiplayer Battles (EMB) I mean battles (played on EA Play) that can be configured in such a way (probably by a battle setup file) so that you are able to play any battle you could otherwise risk encountering in single player campaign mode, except - of course - that the opposing forces will be commanded by players instead of AI Taishos.
That will mean you in addition to be able to configure the usual aspects (such as time limit, season and weather, player colours (Mons), designated Taisho-unit, unit honour, initial unit placing and map) also are able to configure whether an army is Christian or Buddhist, include a Daimyo force, use partially depleted forces (some units may start out with less than 60 men), have differences in weapon and armour quality. Further more you can have more teams than just defender and attacker (although not a crucial point in multiplayer), you can have more than 16 units (by the reinforcement method) and potentially all attributes of every involved unit might be customisable.
Note: I am not implying that there should be a fancy graphical user interface - quite on the contrary - a simple approach giving the ability to choose a battle setup file where you normally select a map and buy units would be very well suited.
If EMB was implemented it is certain that different multiplayer missions and different kinds of campaigns would emerge (just look at all the people on this board itching to make such modes, and maybe even more important all those people more than ready to play said modes). STW already has the option to write out a log file with battle results (well begun is half done http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif ). I believe that option was included primaryly to 'help out' Erado San and others with their online campaign projects. To my knowledge Erado San's project ran into some difficulties a while back (I guess we have to ask Erado San to know for sure) and I humbly guess the lack of EMB must have greatly contributed to those difficulties. The reason I mention Erado's project here is that many of these considerations was inspired by the thoughts of Erado San. Erado San also tells how to proceed (in a post at http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/Forum5/HTML/000017.html ); we should define and describe the ideas that we would like to have implemented and present it to the developers. Therefore I ask those that share this point of view to take time to submit their comments on EMB http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif .
I hope we will be able to ask how much effort such a feature (EMB) will require to implement and what the primary difficulties would be when Question Time 3 opens.
Rodhern
By Editable Multiplayer Battles (EMB) I mean battles (played on EA Play) that can be configured in such a way (probably by a battle setup file) so that you are able to play any battle you could otherwise risk encountering in single player campaign mode, except - of course - that the opposing forces will be commanded by players instead of AI Taishos.
That will mean you in addition to be able to configure the usual aspects (such as time limit, season and weather, player colours (Mons), designated Taisho-unit, unit honour, initial unit placing and map) also are able to configure whether an army is Christian or Buddhist, include a Daimyo force, use partially depleted forces (some units may start out with less than 60 men), have differences in weapon and armour quality. Further more you can have more teams than just defender and attacker (although not a crucial point in multiplayer), you can have more than 16 units (by the reinforcement method) and potentially all attributes of every involved unit might be customisable.
Note: I am not implying that there should be a fancy graphical user interface - quite on the contrary - a simple approach giving the ability to choose a battle setup file where you normally select a map and buy units would be very well suited.
If EMB was implemented it is certain that different multiplayer missions and different kinds of campaigns would emerge (just look at all the people on this board itching to make such modes, and maybe even more important all those people more than ready to play said modes). STW already has the option to write out a log file with battle results (well begun is half done http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif ). I believe that option was included primaryly to 'help out' Erado San and others with their online campaign projects. To my knowledge Erado San's project ran into some difficulties a while back (I guess we have to ask Erado San to know for sure) and I humbly guess the lack of EMB must have greatly contributed to those difficulties. The reason I mention Erado's project here is that many of these considerations was inspired by the thoughts of Erado San. Erado San also tells how to proceed (in a post at http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/Forum5/HTML/000017.html ); we should define and describe the ideas that we would like to have implemented and present it to the developers. Therefore I ask those that share this point of view to take time to submit their comments on EMB http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif .
I hope we will be able to ask how much effort such a feature (EMB) will require to implement and what the primary difficulties would be when Question Time 3 opens.
Rodhern