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Incongruous
03-03-2006, 05:39
http://p223.ezboard.com/fshoguntotalwarfrm55.showMessage?topicID=1076.topic

Although this only awnsers the questions of

Will CA base M2TW upon an historical timeline?No

Will it include Summer and winter?yes

I think that the 225 turn (this has been edited because Simon Appleton told me to, I can give no more information, I would like it if you didn't draw to much attention to it please. I am very sorry) will be included, unfortunatley CA refuse to provide any reasoning for this decision.

Oh Well...
Any other decent TTS/RTS games coming out?

TB666
03-03-2006, 06:42
Your link doesn't work but I assume you mean this
http://p223.ezboard.com/fshoguntotalwarfrm55.showMessage?topicID=1076.topic
I see a reason why they have done this.

The designers now have the fidelity they need to make the game play better without being tied to very specific historical dates. The player doesn't have wait through long periods of medieval nothingness which detracts from the enjoyment of the game.

This is like the fewer provinces in BI.
Alot of people whined about it but when we actually got it alot of people found it better then the original map.
Maybe CA has found that this new system adds to gameplay.

Incongruous
03-03-2006, 07:12
Sorry fixed the link.
Well I'll need a bit more enlightenment about the 225 turns.

TB666
03-03-2006, 07:17
Sorry fixed the link.
Well I'll need a bit more enlightenment about the 225 turns.
I think we all do but this system could still be in the works, maybe that is why they aren't giving us the full info on it yet.
Personally I'm not entirely sure about this new system but right now it is in the "try it first" area.

screwtype
03-03-2006, 07:43
Sounds like what they're doing is just having numbered turns, instead of turns by date.

And then now and again I guess, you will get an announcement about some chronological milestone that has been reached, such as "1390 - the first culverin reach the battlefield" (no I don't know when culverin first appeared, I just made that up).

Sounds fine to me. What's the problem with it?

Zatoichi
03-03-2006, 09:56
I've definitely got a bad 'gut reaction' to the idea of seeing turns instead of years - but I can't really put the reason why into words. Maybe it's just the fear of change! I'm not sure how it will work with generals/Kings aging though - that falls under the need for more information category.

So - how will it all work, and how is this better than the way it's worked since Shogun?

Answers on a postcard please...

spmetla
03-03-2006, 10:48
Erasing the past...

ivoignob
03-03-2006, 11:12
As for the turns 1,2,3... maybe they just haven't written the dates in yet? I don't think that's a big problem...

doc_bean
03-03-2006, 11:20
It's just silly!

It's a game. Civ has had a similar system for over a decade and it works wonderfully there.

I thought the campaign map was the real weakness of RTW and am glad they are trying new things to improve it.

If you want to play MTW, play MTW, this is a sequel and not a remake. I'll wait until the game is released before passing judgement.

hellenes
03-03-2006, 11:58
If they want to get the clickfest RTS crowd that playes AoE and "0wnz de n00bz" they are free to do so what is important is if they leave it MODDABLE!
All the rest can be tolerated...

Hellenes

Kraxis
03-03-2006, 12:38
As someone on he .com said, if there are no dates then this game will just become a game that has knights rather than a historical game. A lot of feeling and atmosphere is put into those little figures. They are important in keeping a feeling of historical progress, even if it has no basis in reality.

But it is so hard to lie to yourself when it says: Turn 16 rather than 1112 Summer.

It is bad enough that apparently each turn is equivalent to two years (not four spmetla), but no dates?

If we have no dates then how does aging work? As it should? Meaning each turn is in fact two years? Or will the people not die in a realistic fashion compared to the dates? The former will be realistic but horrible as we would hardly get a chance to get familiar with the persons (it was hard enough in MTW). The latter will just move the game even more into the 'game that has knights' category.

I'm beginning to fear that 1080-1530 is just the possible range of progress rather than the timeperiod. Pretty much like AOE games. They too range from a certain aproximate date to another aproximate date.
But then I wonder why they have even used dates to say "here it starts, but it doesn't really start here... get it?". Why not just say that the game starts out in the feudal period?

But I refuse to rave until I see a strategic screenshot.

I feel a bit sorry for Wikiman, it is clear that he knows what it is people want to know, and it is obvious that he does not want to say it. He does seem to have some conflicting, emotions would be too strong a word, but it fits quite well.

Templar Knight
03-03-2006, 12:41
As for the turns 1,2,3... maybe they just haven't written the dates in yet? I don't think that's a big problem...

Could well be, it seems rather silly not to have dates in a historical game, unless they are aiming this game at casual gamers and people who can't count. :coffeenews:

ivoignob
03-03-2006, 13:13
Actually I see no reason for that. People, don't get panic! I mean, why should they name the turns 1,2,3... there is no reason for that. I am not a programmer, but I think that it's well possible, that they didn't include the dates yet and named them 1,2,3... instead. As for the short turn-time period, I have no idea about that.

Servius
03-03-2006, 13:19
The purpose and rational seem obvious. CA wants the game to cover a VERY long period of time, but they don't want the game to take 'too long' and become tedious. CA wants to include major historical events, probably as triggers like the Marian event in RTW, but in order to keep the action going, they feel the need to blow through many years where they feel nothing interesting happened.

So, if turn 1 = 1066, turn 100 =/= 1166. Turn 100 could = 1280. They probably designed it like this:

Q1) How long a time period do we want to cover?
A1) 1050 - 1600, so like 550 years

Q2) But how many turns do we want?
A2) Approx. 225

Q3) But if 1 turn =/= 1 year, how will we mark the passage of time?
A3) We will use major historic milestones, and sprinkle them throughout the 225 turns. They will occur in historic order, but obviously not with the historic amount of turns/years between them.

Basically, CA is treating the medieval and renesance periods like it was recorded on a TIVO. The boring parts are treated like commercials and are skipped over. That way, the 4-hour Super Bowl game is boiled down to a 2-hour high-light film, plus the Rolling Stones half-time show of course.

Mooks
03-03-2006, 13:53
Its a sad sad day for all TW. Stick to the old system...Im not buying this game until I hear from other people what its like (when it goes for sell). They should keep the 1103 AD and keep it one turn one year or maybe even 1 turn 2 seasons. Why fix something if it isnt broke?

Im looking for historical accuracy, if NOTHING happened for a 100 year period O well. (Not like the retards their aiming for will notice). The marian reforms in RTW happened around 100-70 AD, yet they happened in the game 100 years off.

One word for CA's new changes...
BOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! :furious3:

PROMETHEUS
03-03-2006, 14:47
I don't like the way he manages pring .... too much words for saying actually nothing .....

Orda Khan
03-03-2006, 17:06
Just mirroring some comments here, turns instead of dates is NOT a good step IMO

.......Orda

doc_bean
03-03-2006, 20:16
I really doubt they're going to keep turns instead of just adding a certain date to a certain turn. They're probably still balancing the campaign pace so they haven't added them yet.

Dutch_guy
03-03-2006, 20:47
Just mirroring some comments here, turns instead of dates is NOT a good step IMO

.......Orda

Seconded. :yes:

:balloon2:

General4Hire
03-03-2006, 20:55
bottom line, i find any change in this area to be unacceptable. As one person pointed out very clearly: When did someone complain about "nothingness" for long periods of time before?

This better not just be some moron design team's idea that they're going to "try" with a game that has the potential to be the greatest grand strategy game ever made.

225 turns? I don't buy. If you want each game to be a copy of an AOE zerg fest then go ahead...I don't. The prospect of spanning 500+ turns through this entire period was probably the MOST appealing aspect of the game at this early stage.

spmetla
03-03-2006, 20:59
Erasing the past...

Dead Moroz
03-03-2006, 21:47
I don't like the way he manages pring .... too much words for saying actually nothing .....
I have the same impression of that wicked man Wikiman. :) I thought I knew English but every time I read his posts I understand almost nothing. He is very tongue-tied and he is one of those people who talk but not tell. Though maybe he's just trying to speak with teens on their language, 'coz I noticed that teeny fans always admire his words.

Talking 'bout turns issue. First time I heard it I thought like: "Strange... But why not!? Maybe it's really better decision." But now the more I think about it and read other people comments the more "contra" I see and no any "pro". That idea of "passing through medieval nothingness" is very-very doubtful. I'd like to ask CA: what are you making the game for if it's just about "nothingness"? And maybe it's better to call this "nothingness" its real name - "poor gameplay"?

Btw, I think I can answer instead of CA to those who ask for turns moddability: "Forget about it!" Remember how much CA spoke about "unique moddability" of RTW before its release? And what did we get instead? Now they don't even mention any possible moddability of the game.

doc_bean
03-03-2006, 21:47
Civ is a great game that I enjoy playing but it's a RTS

:inquisitive: No, it isn't, it isn't even real-time.



and based very loosely on the actual civilizations that existed but that's alright because that's how the Civ games have always been. The Total War series have always been based on certain periods of history and deal with an actual map of Europe instead of just random maps.

I think 'loosely based on history' would describe the TW games pretty well.



I am really against this new system if I'm understanding it probably and I see no good reason for a switch from the old,


How many turns did it take to conquer the map in MTW (or worse, RTW) ? How many turns did it take before you could get such an advantage over your opponents that there really wasn't any point in continuing the campaign anymore ? It probably didn't take most people much over 225 turns. Heck, most games are effectively over (except for rebellions and heirless kings) after 100 turns.



Like I've said if they think that there would be too many turns in as large a time period as they've chosen than they should focus on a smaller time period.


I'm curious to how the campaign flow will be, but in general I agree with your point. I tend to prefer games that are more focused.

Don't get me wrong, I don't expect MTWII to be as great a game as MTW was (at its time), I do however hope that it will be a decent, enjoyable strategy game in its own right. There are too few of those around as it is.

Antagonist
03-03-2006, 22:14
I'm a bit mystified with this date thing personally. My impression was that they were trying to correct an oft (well, occasionally) complained about realism flaw: the extreme difficulty of finding a single time-period for each turn which would accurately represent both recruitment/construction and movement (EG VI, in which it takes 5 years to move an army across England for a distance which has been historically covered in 5 days) but now I'm not so sure. And even if that were the case, then it sounds like correcting that (minor IMO) flaw would blast open a massive hole in the game as regards immersion/realism. That said, I won't jump to conclusions until I have a better idea what they're doing.

I must say I don't know what people mean as regards Wikiman, though. Surely commentary is better than stony silence? He doesn't seem to be terribly clear sometimes about what he's saying, but nor does he seem like some sinister PR guy trying to win the community's confidence the better to deceive us.

Antagonist

lars573
03-04-2006, 00:19
Wikiman's got a fairly big NDA cover what he can say. And they are probably still working out how the progression of time is going to work. And how the campagin is going to be set up.

screwtype
03-04-2006, 03:22
I find it kind of comical to see people getting all worked up over such a trivial issue. Who cares whether the turns are labelled by dates or numbers? It's 0.001% of the game experience.

For those who argue that turns without dates is not "historical", I find that argument utterly ludicrous. What is not historical now is that armies - heck, even agents - take literally decades to march from one side of the map to the other.

Simply relabelling the turns by number would not be my ideal solution to this problem, by a long chalk, but it's certainly no less unrealistic than having annual or biannual turns where armies only get to march a few miles and fight a single battle. How long did it take Alexander to conquer the world again? Oh, that's right, about 12 years, including long periods of diplomatic consolidation between military campaigns. Try doing that in RTW.

Crazed Rabbit
03-04-2006, 04:43
Well, I'm starting to feel less and less bad that I won't be able to play MTW2 with my current system.

I mean, come on, turns? 'Skipping through the boring parts'? WTH?! What if I want to just build up my empire, or move an army in the winter and not have to wait to the following winter to attack? Oh yeah, I conquered England on turn 35! Or, I gave those French a nasty beating on turn 54! *sighs* Oh well. Guess they didn't learn that much from RTW.

Crazed Rabbit

hellenes
03-04-2006, 04:53
I find it kind of comical to see people getting all worked up over such a trivial issue. Who cares whether the turns are labelled by dates or numbers? It's 0.001% of the game experience.

For those who argue that turns without dates is not "historical", I find that argument utterly ludicrous. What is not historical now is that armies - heck, even agents - take literally decades to march from one side of the map to the other.

Simply relabelling the turns by number would not be my ideal solution to this problem, by a long chalk, but it's certainly no less unrealistic than having annual or biannual turns where armies only get to march a few miles and fight a single battle. How long did it take Alexander to conquer the world again? Oh, that's right, about 12 years, including long periods of diplomatic consolidation between military campaigns. Try doing that in RTW.

Well how long did your general live? 58 TURNS? Then 1 turn=1 year. So if it takes 3 turns to march from Italy to Sicily that means 3 years...See your problem still exists.
And what about splitting the campaign in 3 or 4 starting periods like M1TW?
Was that that hard for the RTS impared to understand? What about 4 turns per year? That would give your Alexander 48 turns...with RTW's PO I can get you 50 provinces in 29 turns...
I dont care about gameplay realism, what I care about is IMMERSION and dumbing the game down to the level of AoE's ludicrucy doesnt immerse me at all...

Hellenes

lars573
03-04-2006, 05:33
I'm starting to think that Paradox and Petroglyph have the right idea for how a campagin game should un-fold. That is with a ticking clock. Where 1 second in real time is 1 day of the campagin game gone buy.

Kraxis
03-04-2006, 06:11
Take a look over at the .com thread...

For once the .com and the .org is in almost complete agreement. That is new. Also I hope it is a fairly rude awakening, and an incentive to do something.

This is the first time I'm honestly thinking about not buying the game, and I must say I don't like it.

screwtype
03-04-2006, 06:39
Well how long did your general live? 58 TURNS? Then 1 turn=1 year. So if it takes 3 turns to march from Italy to Sicily that means 3 years...See your problem still exists.

Yes, I know the problem still exists, I'm just saying that labelling turns either by date or by number means absolutely nothing in terms of historicity or realism.


And what about splitting the campaign in 3 or 4 starting periods like M1TW?

That was a nice feature, but then again isn't that what mods are for?


What about 4 turns per year? That would give your Alexander 48 turns...with RTW's PO I can get you 50 provinces in 29 turns...

Yes but it still wouldn't remotely emulate the actual historical campaign. Alexander was only campaigning for a fraction of that 12 years. A few big battles and he had conquered everything from Greece to India.

The campaign side of TW has always been deeply abstracted and from a wargamer's POV, nothing more than beer 'n' pretzels fun. I just find it amusing that people get all bent out of out shape over the scrapping of some tiny so-called "historical" game mechanic that isn't the least bit historical or realistic at all.


I dont care about gameplay realism, what I care about is IMMERSION and dumbing the game down to the level of AoE's ludicrucy doesnt immerse me at all...

I'm inclined to agree, but I don't believe for a New York minute that labelling turns by numbers rather than years will affect my level of immersion. Or yours for that matter, after the first half dozen turns.

Furious Mental
03-04-2006, 07:34
My guess is that cannot/ will not insert different starting dates and have simply decided that they will allow the player to experience the "Late Middle Ages" by compressing 550 years into 225.

Ignoramus
03-04-2006, 07:58
This is utterly ridiculous by CA!

Zatoichi
03-04-2006, 09:58
'Turn-gate' rumbles on!

As Kraxis said, there is full agreement over at the .com about this - in fact the responses there are actually much harsher than here.

I'm keen to see more information on this come Monday - as it stands people are getting very worked up - I'm still in the 'suck it and see' camp - I'm disappointed by what sounds like a faster less in-depth campaign, but I'm willing to hold fire on this until I hear more.

For the record, I took well over 300 turns to finish RTW, so 225 turns does sound quite short to me, however they address the 'abstract' nature of years to turns issue.

TB666
03-04-2006, 11:33
Well the date/turn thing is probably so that the historically accurate whiners would shut up.
With turns you can't complain about certain events happening too early.

But I'm a slow player, I like to take it easy and build up slowly.
225 turns seems to be too fast for me.
I mean what's the point in improved diplomacy if you don't have time to use it ??
I hope you can mod it atleast.

Antagonist
03-04-2006, 11:57
Well the date/turn thing is probably so that the historically accurate whiners would shut up. With turns you can't complain about certain events happening too early.

Which is a little bit ironic, considering their response.

Antagonist

TB666
03-04-2006, 13:26
Which is a little bit ironic, considering their response.

Antagonist
Well they probably expected a reaction which is probably why they told us this now instead of later.

Orda Khan
03-04-2006, 14:18
One look at the 'turns per year' poll would imply that a majority would prefer 4 turns to equal 1 year. Different eras is surely the best way to approach this game. Turns without dates mean nothing IMO and with different eras, to my mind, there would be no problem at all

.......Orda

screwtype
03-04-2006, 21:41
One look at the 'turns per year' poll would imply that a majority would prefer 4 turns to equal 1 year. Different eras is surely the best way to approach this game. Turns without dates mean nothing IMO and with different eras, to my mind, there would be no problem at all

.......Orda

Yes, I'd probably prefer seasonal turns myself, or at least an option for seasonal turns so modders can take advantage of the feature. Combined with Civ4 type "eras" it could work quite well.

The good thing about seasonal turns is that you can have different weather effects for the different seasons, as in STW.

Wikiman
03-05-2006, 07:21
lars573 wrote:

"Wikiman's got a fairly big NDA cover what he can say. "

Bingo.

-wikiman

Wikiman
03-05-2006, 07:34
you guys have gone all timid, no response?!

:)

-wikiman

Wikiman
03-05-2006, 07:47
This is just eerie now?!

someone say something!

-wikiman

Quietus
03-05-2006, 08:02
This is just eerie now?!

someone say something!

-wikiman
Hi Wikiman,

Are you taking questions? Because we have a lot. Feel free to filter out what you cannot answer as of this moment.

For example: has the kill-rate and speed rate been lowered in M2TW?

Zatoichi
03-05-2006, 10:02
Posting when everyone is asleep? How timid is that? :laugh4:

The sooner you Aussies shift your working hours to match us in the motherland the better!

It's good to see you posting here Wikiman - don't forget we do appreciate the extra communication going on, regardless of some of the more heated posts that have cropped up recently.

Geoffrey S
03-05-2006, 11:28
Just going to copy and paste my post in that poll thread, to the tune of "Do you think a numbered turns system is the way to go?"

Yes. Having given it some thought I think I can see where this is going, and I like it.

The way it's been described makes it seem like you give your orders to units and things move on until something happens, such as an army reaching its destination or diplomatic actions; management could be done at any time. Hence, dates have no meaning when it comes to turns since turns wouldn't last a particular amount of time. If dates are used it'd purely be for atmospheric reasons but wouldn't have a gameplay purpose: one turn could be half a year, or four years depending on how long it takes for something to occur. There'd be no fixed end date, it'd just end at turn 225 which could be anywhere depending on the time between turns.

That's the way it sounds to me, and if so it sounds good. It's good to see Wikiman and co. even making these posts and also keeping polite. It's more than I could do when working on a presumably tight schedule or faced with rather rude reactions questioning their mental capabilities.
And it's good to see CA posts here too; much appreciated. Any chance of the same kind of stickied CA threads here that can be found at the .com?

TB666
03-05-2006, 12:40
haha Wikiman is spamming :laugh4: j/k.

Wikiman can you atleast tell us that you can mod the number of turns ??
That would get rid of alot of complaints and ease the tention around the forums.

Kraxis
03-05-2006, 13:31
This is just eerie now?!

someone say something!

-wikiman
Very well.

Can you ealaborate on what you have said about the turns?

A lot of ideas have sprung up because, to be honest, what you did say was rather wooly. It was hard to make out what you did say. So have anybody been near what it is going to be?

Civ style? Event style? Evenly spaced? The end defined by number of turns used regardless of year (of course that would demand some sort of flexible turnrate)?

I think a more clear response to this might calm people down.

Husar
03-05-2006, 13:44
Sometimes it took me 100YEARS to set up my empire in RTW before I started the real conquering, in M2 that would be 200 turns meaning I have 25 left to conquer the world?
Modern games simply aren´t designed for slow players like me I think, I can play fast sometimes, but most often I just don´t want to. If i want action, I play a shooter, not a strategy game.
Maybe they can let the player choose between fast medium or slow progress of the campaign, like fast means 225 turns, medium means one turn a year and slow means two turns a year. It shouldn´t be that hard to implement, I think there are other games which managed that aswell. I just want my 900turns!!!

Craterus
03-05-2006, 15:08
Sometimes it took me 100YEARS to set up my empire in RTW before I started the real conquering, in M2 that would be 200 turns meaning I have 25 left to conquer the world?
Modern games simply aren´t designed for slow players like me I think, I can play fast sometimes, but most often I just don´t want to. If i want action, I play a shooter, not a strategy game.
Maybe they can let the player choose between fast medium or slow progress of the campaign, like fast means 225 turns, medium means one turn a year and slow means two turns a year. It shouldn´t be that hard to implement, I think there are other games which managed that aswell. I just want my 900turns!!!

I'm with Husar. Make turn lengths optional. I want to have a slow, enjoyable game. Some people prefer faster games. Accomodate for both! Please!

Dead Moroz
03-05-2006, 16:44
you guys have gone all timid, no response?!

:)

-wikiman
You gotta work as fast as you make posts. ~;p

:weirdthread:

Orda Khan
03-05-2006, 20:34
Post edited

KukriKhan
03-05-2006, 22:54
lars573 wrote:

"Wikiman's got a fairly big NDA cover what he can say. "

Bingo.

-wikiman

Translation for the Aussie-impaired: "I could tell you, but I'd lose my job - it's a Term of Employment." The other 2 responses were (taking advantage of the time difference between Aus, US & western Euro) teasing plays on the title of the thread - 'timid', and 'response'...with smileys. :)

#1 requirement when waiting for a game release 6 months out: sense of humour.

#2: patience

By posting infrequently, CA staff is letting us know that they're reading what is written here (maybe taking some of it on-board), but it's too early to divulge many of the gameplay choices they've made. No sense tipping their hand too soon to the competition. Solid info is gonna come out in dribs and drabs, like it always does, 'til about 30-45 days before release.

Fans' job, if you will, at this stage is to dissect and discuss what info DOES get released (we do that very well here), and throw whatever ideas we have for improved gameplay, etc out there. If we have 150 ideas, chances are good, that there's one or two the dev's hadn't thought of.

My 2c.

Alexander the Pretty Good
03-06-2006, 01:13
My apologies to CA.

econ21
03-06-2006, 01:32
Polite notice: I'd recommend members take extra care to treat CA staff with courtesy. We should treat all members with courtesy. But with CA, we have an extra collective interest in making them feel welcome. That way we can learn more about their games and also have more chance to have them listen to our ideas.

Wikiman is new here and I don't want ridicule, impatience or grammatical quibbling to irritate him anymore than a dubious thread title may already have done. He probably was not too impressed with seeing a thread entitled "timid response yet again" from him. I certainly would not be too happy to see a thread entitled "timid moderating yet again from Appleton", let alone such a thread about my day job.

Bear in mind that CA bashing is against the forum rules. If people want to continue to complain about removing year labels from turns (and we seem to have several threads all devoted to this), fine, but let's not make it personal.

Kraxis
03-06-2006, 01:56
I think a lot of the problem lies in two points.
1: Wikiman seems to genuinely want to tell us a lot of stuff, but he can't.
2: Trying to keep that in mind as well as calm the masses, he ends up saying a great deal which we can't make sense of. I have experienced such myself too many time to count now.

We of course want clearcut info, and when we get some rather vague sentences we get not only confused (look at the number of interpretations here) but also very frustrated (which is even more obvious). It is then our job to keep our frustrations civil as well as not expect that our confusion will get solved. But we can be allowed to ask and hope, and that I do.

Reenk Roink
03-06-2006, 03:49
I do see Wikiman on the Org a lot, and when I click on his user profile, he is definitely looking at our suggestions and threads, so lets not make him a scapegoat... :nice:

Xiahou
03-06-2006, 04:31
Some say it's a small thing, but to me this abstract turn system that's being discussed is fast destroying my interest in the game.

Surely there was a better way to address time accuracy besides doing away with it altogether??? I mean, couldnt they instead have tweaked build times or movement rates or anything? I loved MTW, my only accuracy gripe (in terms of time) was overland troop movement. But, couldnt they have seperated out build turns and movement/battle turns? You know, 2-4 move turns for every build turn- heck, you could even make it configurable, so if certain folks just want to run thru the game quickly, they can (1-1 build/move ratio) and those of use who wanted a slower, slightly more realistic time flow couldve gotten that as well. And the option of playing different periods to me is a no-brainer... if someone wants to start early and play all the way thru (like I usually did) great- if you only want to play a certain period, you could do that too.

I definitely wont be the first one in line to buy this, if at all.

Quietus
03-06-2006, 05:49
Some say it's a small thing, but to me this abstract turn system that's being discussed is fast destroying my interest in the game.

Surely there was a better way to address time accuracy besides doing away with it altogether??? I mean, couldnt they instead have tweaked build times or movement rates or anything? I loved MTW, my only accuracy gripe (in terms of time) was overland troop movement. But, couldnt they have seperated out build turns and movement/battle turns? You know, 2-4 move turns for every build turn- heck, you could even make it configurable, so if certain folks just want to run thru the game quickly, they can (1-1 build/move ratio) and those of use who wanted a slower, slightly more realistic time flow couldve gotten that as well. And the option of playing different periods to me is a no-brainer... if someone wants to start early and play all the way thru (like I usually did) great- if you only want to play a certain period, you could do that too.

I definitely wont be the first one in line to buy this, if at all.
Judging from CA's responses (Wikiman, Dutch, Prasthereaper) it seems like the decision to switch to Turns Numbering is due to the length of the campaign.

I don't think they want to separate the eras and thereby separate the Units (which I think is key for this decision). By lengthening the Turn time they

1) can cover the whole period, events and unit varieties in one campaign.

2) allow players to bypass the eras and train the particular elite troops they wish. (Sadly, this encourages 'pumping out' Knights-with-impunity, RTS mentality, not the TW combined arms of old :sweatdrop: ). With RTW, the series is already heavily tilting to the feel-good, you-can't-lose-gaming (overflowing warchest, negligible fatigue, no feinting penalties, no disadvantageous weather, simplified bridge routing, cheap and fast structures, cheap cavalry cost, upkeep and spamming etc). On the positive note, if the M2TW AI is brutal and merciless that could tip back the direction.

Secondly, I don't think the new Turn System implementation will be overturned. It was already mentioned that the tutorials are being made concurrently (as opposes to RTW where it was made at the last minute) and are thus fully integrated with the core gameplay.

Meaning, the new AI Advisor will be using the the words "Turn 1" or "in five turns".

High Advisor: "Search the lower right hand corner of your screen and you will see the 'Turn 0' button. Left-click to progress the time."

Puzz3D
03-06-2006, 06:23
I loved MTW, my only accuracy gripe (in terms of time) was overland troop movement. But, couldnt they have seperated out build turns and movement/battle turns? You know, 2-4 move turns for every build turn.
I guess you weren't around here when we found out that MTW was using 1 turn per year. There was vehement protest about it. You see the game already had 4 movement turns and one harvest turn in STW where you got your money to build on the harvest turn. Well, they didn't listen to us then, so I wouldn't expect them to listen now.

An STW campaign typically ran from 1530 to 1600 although there was no precise end date. That would give you 280 seasonal movement turns, with unique weather for each season, to take 64 provinces. So, there's a great idea which came from CA that was once in this game and they took it out, and that wasn't because they went to a new game engine because STW and MTW are very similar.

screwtype
03-06-2006, 09:05
(Sadly, this encourages 'pumping out' Knights-with-impunity, RTS mentality, not the TW combined arms of old :sweatdrop: ).

Actually, that's a very good point. How are you going to compress a number of different troops eras in just 225 turns without making it really easy to get to the top of the build tree?

Does this mean that they won't have different troop eras? But if so, what's the point in trying to cover 550 years of history?

And if they do have different troop eras, that means that if you ever want to see an early era knight, the build tree will also have to be somehow truncated, won't it?

Hmmm....this is all starting to sound a bit dicey...


(With RTW, the series is already heavily tilting to the feel-good, you-can't-lose-gaming (overflowing warchest, negligible fatigue, no feinting penalties, no disadvantageous weather, simplified bridge routing, cheap and fast structures, cheap cavalry cost, upkeep and spamming etc).

Ugh. Don't remind me.


On the positive note, if the M2TW AI is brutal and merciless that could tip back the direction.

I'm not expecting miracles. I'd probably settle this time around for an AI that was as good - but hopefully a tad better - than what we got in STW or MTW.

screwtype
03-06-2006, 09:12
I guess you weren't around here when we found out that MTW was using 1 turn per year. There was vehement protest about it. You see the game already had 4 movement turns and one harvest turn in STW where you got your money to build on the harvest turn. Well, they didn't listen to us then, so I wouldn't expect them to listen now.

An STW campaign typically ran from 1530 to 1600 although there was no precise end date. That would give you 280 seasonal movement turns, with unique weather for each season, to take 64 provinces. So, there's a great idea which came from CA that was once in this game and they took it out, and that wasn't because they went to a new game engine because STW and MTW are very similar.

Yeah, but they couldn't really use the same system in MTW because they wanted to cover a much longer period in history.

Be nice if they put the seasons back in though so the modders at least could take advantage of them. Personally I think the STW setup was much better. Who really needs different generations of troops anyhow? I think I'd rather have four separate campaigns covering four different troop generations, with seasonal turns, than one foreshortened campaign covering all four troop generations with annual turns as in MTW.

Puzz3D
03-06-2006, 13:45
Yeah, but they couldn't really use the same system in MTW because they wanted to cover a much longer period in history.
That was the mistake in concept. They didn't have to cover 1089 to 1453 in one campaign and have conquest of all 128 provinces the objective. After all, no empire in history ever conquered all that territory. Each period, early, middle and late, could have had its own more limited objective. Each campaign would have been about 120 years long making each campaign 480 turns if turns were seasonal.

econ21
03-06-2006, 14:16
That was the mistake in concept. They didn't have to ... have conquest of all 128 provinces the objective. After all, no empire in history ever conquered all that territory.

I think that's a good point. Some progress has been made (over the conquer the entire map concept of Shogun) in terms of MTWs glorious achievements and BIs faction specific goals. The EB mod also has some very nice faction-specific goals (suitably ambitious for the Romans, more modest for lesser factions).

Operationalising this may require a tougher AI or other inhibitions to stop the player simply conquering the entire map. WesW made a big contribution here, with his "homelands" idea in MedMod, that has subsequently been used for RTR and EB. A tighter economy, attrition, loyalty etc problems may also help. (If anyone doubts RTW engine can constrain the player, have a look at the WRE PBM being played under some houserules.)

But for faction specific objectives to be worthwhile requires a significant investment in each individual faction. That's why I've never signed up to the "we must have 30+ factions" complaints. I'd rather have 5-6 factions done like RTW's Romans - with the equivalent of Senate type objectives and other chrome such as speeches, unique units etc - than 20+ generic Catholic factions from MTW.


Personally I think the STW setup was much better. Who really needs different generations of troops anyhow?

I've got to disagree - I love the idea of having a long sweep of history a la MTW and M2TW. I guess that's a matter of personal preference - if I could choose between a Civ like game or an ultra-realistic simulation of the Hundred Years War, I'd probably find the former more fun - I know other people's mileage may differ. And I like the carrot provided by better troop types you can work towards (I'd like it even better if you could upgrade experienced troops to have the new kit too). These panoramic and building aspects of the TW campaigns help make them more than just a string of battles. At the strategic level STW ultimately boiled down to a slugfest. I much preferred the greater strategic freedom MTW offered you. The RTW map gives you even more freedom, IMO, and is more potentially more fun - even if it is harder to program the AI for it.

player1
03-06-2006, 19:51
That was the mistake in concept. They didn't have to cover 1089 to 1453 in one campaign and have conquest of all 128 provinces the objective. After all, no empire in history ever conquered all that territory. Each period, early, middle and late, could have had its own more limited objective. Each campaign would have been about 120 years long making each campaign 480 turns if turns were seasonal.


Whoe said that conquest of 128 provinces is objective.

If that was true game would have more turns.
It all seems to me that it's as paced as RTW, since usually you get 50 provinces in less then 200 turns (but has 500 turns for some reason :dizzy2: ).

Kraxis
03-06-2006, 20:15
Whoe said that conquest of 128 provinces is objective.

If that was true game would have more turns.
It all seems to me that it's as paced as RTW, since usually you get 50 provinces in less then 200 turns (but has 500 turns for some reason :dizzy2: ).
He was talking about how MTW, the original, was wrongly set up.

Puzz3D
03-06-2006, 20:18
Whoe said that conquest of 128 provinces is objective.
I was talking about MTW, and that was the objective of MTW. They did have the Glorious Achievment campaigns. Those were nice, but they got streamlined out of the game. It must be good that the Glorious Achievment mode is gone because streamlining is apparently good. Isn't the word "streamlining" being used to connote something desireable? The battle engine got streamlined as well.

General4Hire
03-06-2006, 22:25
Whoe said that conquest of 128 provinces is objective.

If that was true game would have more turns.
It all seems to me that it's as paced as RTW, since usually you get 50 provinces in less then 200 turns (but has 500 turns for some reason :dizzy2: ).

some of you need to stop saying that most games take less than 200 turns. when people play on H or VH (especially vh/vh) games usually do span 450-500 years. Many times it's a close call at the end.

When you play on "sandbox mode" (medium) it shouldn't take you very long...it's the default difficulty pretty much designed to be a shorter, easier campaign.

It's posts like these that give CA the idea that people want a faster campaign...for the most part (look around here and the .com) people do not.

I personally would like MTW2 to be 4 turns per year, 600-700 turns. I would LOVE RTW's campaign map strategy combined with MTW2 and building a major empire in europe over the course of months of playtime.

I really wish some of the obviously "younger" and more interested in "candy" clickfest players would just shuffle on to other games. This game was never about your AOE berry gathering 1 hour game.

All you're doing is convincing CA that you DO want a dumbed down game...stop, and graze elsewhere.

Again, the bottom line is that if turns replace years (sorry, but whoever thought of this first should be drawn and quartered, not debatable either) and the campaign is limited to 225 turns (again, only a totally incompetent developer would even consider this...he should be shot) They're going to lose about 50 percent of their fanbase for MTW2 before the game even ships. Nobody is going to accept the entire game being dumbed down and changed, with absolutely NO explanation as to why from the devs.

I swear it...unless this changes, I will never play another TW game. However, we have been here before as a community, not knowing what the future holds in the series and what not...but CA is not saying that this is something they're "considering"...they said openly "this is the way it's going to be" before they got ANY feedback from anyone. So the fact of the matter is 1) they couldn't care less what the community as a whole wants, they only create the kind of game THEY envision and we already know they're incompetent and 2) They're just stuffing an AOE clickfest down our throats...don't like it? tough. They are basically destroying the sub genre that this game created. Why? I simply will not stop posting why all over the .com until it's answered.

All I see is sidestepping by wiki and the other CA reps. That's it. They will read 500 posts all going "NO WAY!! you're NOT doing this with this game, I won't buy it!!" and then they finally reply, to the 500 posts by saying something like "seiges look good"...nobody cares. It's just avoiding the issue.

Moderator's edit: Flame deleted. In this thread, I said "let's not make it personal" and reminded posters CA bashing was against the rules.

Geoffrey S
03-06-2006, 22:49
Lovely elitist vibe going around.

player1
03-06-2006, 23:11
some of you need to stop saying that most games take less than 200 turns. when people play on H or VH (especially vh/vh) games usually do span 450-500 years. Many times it's a close call at the end.

My error, it's 100-150 turns on Medium and 200-250 at Hard and Very Hard. To take 50 provinces of course. With default playble factions (not some Numidia challenge).

Of course, if you wanna play take all the world, it can take a longer but that's not defauly gameplay, in same way as you can continue campaign after end date without any problems.

Also, if you "turtle" it can get longer, but turtling IS self-limiting strategy to enchance experience lacking in original game (too quick conquest compared to history). If RTW had 1/2 of the current number of turns, many less players will turtle and conquest would more resamle history.


P.S.
Anyway if designers though that 225 turns is too little to finish M2TW campaign on various levels of difficulties they would realise that till now.

But I doubt that M2TW map is in any scope lower then RTW one.

Servius
03-06-2006, 23:17
"This game was never about your AOE berry gathering 1 hour game."

That was pretty funny though.

Apparently this guy Prasthereaper (CA guy?, check the post "CA clarifies turns") posted about the turns, saying "The game is currently paced to be a 225 turn game, and is optimally played at that length. All this information is still being kept in .txt files." To me at least, that implies 2 important things:

a) The games is "paced" to end around 225, but not capped at 225 turns.
b) Turn and time variables are in a .txt file, which if they're like the MTW .txt files, means this aspect of the game will be easily modable.

Time will tell, but I think that gives more than a glimmer of hope that, if you don't like how CA does it, you can easily change it to what you want.

General4Hire
03-07-2006, 00:22
"This game was never about your AOE berry gathering 1 hour game."

That was pretty funny though.

Apparently this guy Prasthereaper (CA guy?, check the post "CA clarifies turns") posted about the turns, saying "The game is currently paced to be a 225 turn game, and is optimally played at that length. All this information is still being kept in .txt files." To me at least, that implies 2 important things:

a) The games is "paced" to end around 225, but not capped at 225 turns.
b) Turn and time variables are in a .txt file, which if they're like the MTW .txt files, means this aspect of the game will be easily modable.

Time will tell, but I think that gives more than a glimmer of hope that, if you don't like how CA does it, you can easily change it to what you want.

the problem is exactly that...it "implies" things. Why do they flat out refuse to just tell us what they're doing?

1 reason: Because they ARE doing exactly what 99.8 percent of the community is stating is enough to make the definitely not buy the game. So now they have to think of a new marketing strategy to effectively "fool" the majority of the community into believing that our suspicions are not true deleted

remember when the load/save/siege bug was a "feature"?

this is the exact same kind of edit: thing going on

Moderator comment: edited to remove CA bashing

Servius
03-07-2006, 03:18
i'm not a legal expert, but I think it's the NDA that might be blocking them from being more precise/specific. It makes sense, CA has said as much, so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt on that. Besides, it's not like we have much choice, we can't force them to tell us anything.

When CA isn't super specific, we will infer and try to fill in the gaps. If we guess one thing, which CA knows to be incorrect, I'd like to think they'll come out and aim us closer to the mark, like they've done recently about the turns/years thing.

z2ei
03-07-2006, 03:54
Lovely elitist vibe going around.

That's generally what it seems like. I get this whole "Oh, no! The game isn't being catered specifically to me!" vibe. Is it even possible to make every hardcore fan happy? "My faction isn't included!" "I don't like the faction list!" "The unit skins have too much color!" "There are no eras!"

I may be the only one, but the mass of negativity is driving me away from the TW community in general.

My thoughts:

I haven't played M2:TW. Hell, it hasn't even been released yet. I haven't had a chance to try the new turn-based system, so why would I start bitching my head off about it. Isn't it just a little premature?

Even if CA did include eras, and every little historical event between 1000 and 1500, there would still be whining about how every Catholic faction shares the same Men-At-Arms and Urban Milita units and the like, because it "isn't realistic". Eras were nice and all, but it's effectively three times the work.

The goal of the game may be more like BI than RTW. "Do this, this, and this to attain victory", instead of "Beat everyone else". If that's true, victory inside of 225 turns is just fine, with the option to continue if you want to conquer the whole globe.

Another thing:

Can we please find some other arguments than "It's for the eye candy fans!" or the cliched as hell "for the pwns the n00bz crowd"? For starters, why would they dumb down the campaign mode for a group of people that only likes multiplayer? Think about it!

(Where's that "beating a dead horse" smiley when you need it?)

As far as eye candy goes, y'know, I like it. I love, and play MTW regularly, but the low-res pixelly sprites, and limited animation hasn't aged well. They'd get laughed out of the building if they released something that looks like MTW in 2006. Besides, unless I'm completely off my rocker, graphic artists and programmers are two completely different teams. Meaning, the prettier units you get isn't going to be taking away from the AI.

That, and how many "younger and in it for the eye candy" players have $300 to blow on a new video card? Or a processor? More RAM? Again, it doesn't really hold water.

I'm not saying the community has to be overwhelmingly positive, but can we get more well-thought posts instead of "BLARGH! CHANGE BAD!"

Kraxis
03-07-2006, 04:35
I haven't played M2:TW. Hell, it hasn't even been released yet. I haven't had a chance to try the new turn-based system, so why would I start bitching my head off about it. Isn't it just a little premature?
I was saying pretty much the same things for every release until now, but at a point you learn that the only time you have a chance to affect the endresult is prior to release. For so far, it has taken alsmost extreme complaining to get CA to fix issues.
So there is a reason why people are paranoid...

z2ei
03-07-2006, 04:43
I was saying pretty much the same things for every release until now, but at a point you learn that the only time you have a chance to affect the endresult is prior to release. For so far, it has taken alsmost extreme complaining to get CA to fix issues.
So there is a reason why people are paranoid...

Except for the fact they've fixed quite a few things since SEGA bought 'em. Like the (much overblown) load-siege bug.

Gustav II Adolf
03-07-2006, 11:19
lars573 wrote:

"Wikiman's got a fairly big NDA cover what he can say. "

Bingo.

-wikiman


mmm. Has the Wikiman been more or less gaged after the recent outcries ? :sweatdrop: High expectations is always difficult to manage. It will require judging wether some information clarify or confuse I hope he can still keep posting updates.

-

Dutch_guy
03-07-2006, 16:35
Lovely elitist vibe going around.

Well when Spartan Total war was about announced it was even worse.

:balloon2:

A.Saturnus
03-07-2006, 20:24
Very good post z2ei :2thumbsup:

Kraxis
03-07-2006, 20:43
Except for the fact they've fixed quite a few things since SEGA bought 'em. Like the (much overblown) load-siege bug.
Yes... They fixed stuff. They didn't improve much, but what they did was genearlly well liked. Lesser charges, less jumping horses, leass archery, more armour and stronger defences. But those were basically rather simple.
They didn't make up for the glaring problems with the entire system, the game was merely fixed, not corrected.
What they did with BI is not what we are asking for. The only thing in there that was suspected to be problematic prior to release (and at the same time a wow-crowd gatherer) was the jumping horses. We were sadly proven right in that suspicion.

Besides, this is pretty much the story every time. The game is faulty fromthe get go and eventually it is fixed by the time the expansion hits the shelves.
Now is the time to correct that, now is the time to make it right from day 1 (sure, bugs and such can't be guarded against).

The sad fact is that there are no other games as the Total War series. There is nowhere else we can turn if this crumbles. Thus I think it is fair that we want to affect the game in the direction we want it to (while of course we understand that it will never cater to our individual tastes specifically there are aspects that many agree on).

I remember how I defended CA when people complained that they thought RTW might become a dumbed down game (marketing often calls this 'simplified' and 'streamlined'). Well, I have to admit they were right, and I don't do that with ease. I was wrong in my beliefs and now I try to make up for that.

Sasaki Kojiro
03-07-2006, 23:43
Lot of fuss over nothing. There was the same hooplah over lack of seasons in MTW and most people liked the game anyway.

z2ei
03-07-2006, 23:57
(cut bunches of text for less page stretching)

There's really only so much you can do with a patch.

Part of the problem lies on the fact that Rome was a completely new engine. Take a look at Shogun and Medieval, and tell me which was generally more refined. Making a new engine takes a lot more work than just refining or upgrading an old one. Add the fact that Activision were trying so hard to push Rome out the door, and you have problems.

With BI, it did solve a lot of problems people were asking for. The AI was better than vanilla RTW's, and there were less provinces, which some people wanted. I suppose that's because of..

The real problem with the Rome engine. The fact that the new map largely eliminated field battles, except for some small enemy stacks or brigands. It just because siege after siege, and that gets old fast. Now, I like the new map, being able to see what's going on (with trade and the like) is kind of nice, instead of just a flat, featureless boardgame map. A combination of the old style (Give very visible province borders, and give the province owner a chance to field battle after the enemy crosses. They shouldn't just be able to walk up and siege your towns/castles.) with the new map's look would be just perfect. It doesn't seem like something that would be -too- hard to implement, but I'm not a programmer. ^_^

Honestly, I don't think Rome was "dumbed down". It was streamlined, though..just compare building units or buildings in Medieval to Rome. In MTW, you've got to click on every single province when a building finishes to start the next, but in Rome, you can just click down the list. Much easier.

As far as the AI, Rome's isn't that much worse than Medieval's, for all the exaggeration that goes on. Now, the campaign map's is (because they didn't have to change the entire system from S to M, I'd imagine), but the battle map's AI is pretty much the same. (It even does the same "sit there until drawn out" effect when defending!)

I think Rome is still good, but flawed. I don't think it's as good as Medieval is, but that's just how my taste runs. I prefer the Medieval period to the ancient Roman one.

screwtype
03-08-2006, 02:36
Very good post z2ei :2thumbsup:

Yeah, z2ei definitely gets my "rookie of the month" award for that one ~:)

screwtype
03-08-2006, 03:01
Part of the problem lies on the fact that Rome was a completely new engine. Take a look at Shogun and Medieval, and tell me which was generally more refined. Making a new engine takes a lot more work than just refining or upgrading an old one. Add the fact that Activision were trying so hard to push Rome out the door, and you have problems.

That's why I continue to entertain optimism about M2TW. I see this as the game where CA gets to put some of that spit and polish on the game that was sorely lacking in RTW.


The real problem with the Rome engine. The fact that the new map largely eliminated field battles, except for some small enemy stacks or brigands. It just became siege after siege, and that gets old fast.

Actually, I found the opposite. With RTW you NEVER have to fight a siege battle, you just have to wait a turn or two until the AI sends the beseiged army an inadequate relieving force, then you beat the crap out of both in the resulting sally battle and just waltz into the undefended city afterwards.

I really hope CA are going to fix this poor AI behaviour in the new game...


As far as the AI, Rome's isn't that much worse than Medieval's, for all the exaggeration that goes on...the battle map's AI is pretty much the same.

Sorry, I strongly disagree. The AI in STW did not try to melee with its ranged units. Nor did it shoot arrows into the backs of the heads of the row of archers just in front. Nor did it throw its units straight into rivers to drown. Nor did it feed its units into the fray one by one. It might conduct a feint with one or two units, but usually it kept its armies pretty much together.

I can beat the AI in STW most of the time pretty easily now, but it took a long time to learn how and it still sometimes suprises me with an unexpected move which costs me the battle. I still have to use my thinking cap with STW. With RTW, all you have to do is lure enemy units out of position one by one and then smack them in the rear with cav.

Trajanus
03-08-2006, 13:02
Sorry, I strongly disagree. The AI in STW did not try to melee with its ranged units. Nor did it shoot arrows into the backs of the heads of the row of archers just in front. Nor did it throw its units straight into rivers to drown. Nor did it feed its units into the fray one by one. It might conduct a feint with one or two units, but usually it kept its armies pretty much together.


Well, in STW units cant drown because water-regions are out-of-bounds. But true archers dont fire arrows into their own front rank, and no usually AI armies dont feed units into battles (except cav sometimes). But the AI does try to melee with its ranged units when they have no ammo and as a last resort, I have fought many battles like this.

But STW was a simpler game than RTW, and as time evolved CA wanted to evolve the game play to keep people interested. I can understand how this got caught-up in AI battle controls. More options for the AI gives it more problems.

--------------------
Back on-topic. CA don't have to tell us anything. Everytime a new game comes out we as the online community feel that it is our right to have all our questions answered because we talk about the games they produce all the time. There are other people who purchase the game who don't come online and talk. They don't bitch about things.

More to the point I guess its something along the lines that we seem to think we are almost part of the CA team because of the years we have all spent playing and talking about and modding their games. But at the end of the day we are just customers (and a part of their market not the entire market). So yeah we would like CA to deliver a game to us that meets all our wishes but it might not be a viable option to their strategy.

The benefit is that they consistently make their games more and more openly moddable for us to do what we think they left out. Stop giving them a hard time don't forget they make these games for you and they don't have to. THey could scrap the whole series and go onto something else.

Stop bitching and let them do what they do best, then you can all enjoy the surprises, and then mod to your hearts content.

Philippus Flavius Homovallumus
03-08-2006, 17:08
I understand where they're coming from but let me share something with you.

When I first finished MTW I had maybe 10-15 years left and that was on easy.

If the game goes too fast up the difficulty.

Im in 512AD in BI at the moment and I only finished off the ERE and reunited Rome about 20 years ago.

What is needed is more aggressive AI and more stuff to do per turn, not fewer turns. Also for all those "The game will go faster" guys, thing on this.

Currently a town has to be sieged for about 4-6 turns, or 2-3 years. It the change goes through you'll actually be sieging the same town for 8-12 years, it will take 6-12 years to get accros western Europe.

If this stays it will suck.

Rufus
03-08-2006, 17:26
Maybe I'm missing something, but if kings, generals, etc. age two years per turn, and the typical campaign will last about 225 turns, that's about 450 years. And what is the approximate date span - 1087-1530? So it's not like you'd likely have a campaign where you finish during the reign of the same king/emperor/sultan, etc. you started with, or even his son, or grandson. I don't see a big problem in terms of reducing realism vis a vis the timespan and pace.

I agree, however, that removing the year does remove some of the sense of historical immersion. If CA wants to have the campaign last about 225 turns and about 2 years per turn, that doesn't necessarily preclude them from putting the year on the screen. Instead of turn 1, say "Summer 1087." Turn 2 is "Winter 1089," and so on. I know that makes it obvious that you don't get to do something in 1088, but that's OK. I suppose that could make events problematic, but those aren't pegged to their historical counterparts anyway, right? The year of the Marian reforms varies, for example.

The final issue seems to have more to do with whether 225 turns is an adequate pace, as opposed to whether the year should be posted on the campaign screen. As someone who only has time to play a few hours per week, I actually don't mind the idea of a 225-turn campaign. My games tend to take about 10 minutes per turn - a rough average. Each turn varies widely depending on how much I have to do on the campaign map; what point in the campaign I'm in and whether I fight a battle in that turn. But 10 minutes is about average, I'd say. In that case, a campaign would take about 38 hours, or, in my case, maybe 6 weeks. That seems like a good span of time to me. If a campaign is dragging on and on for months of real time, I tend to lose interest because I can only devote so much time per week. At the same time, I don't want a AOE type game where you're done in a few hours. This seems like a good balance.

So maybe CA is going not for the AOE crowd by shortening the campaign (since it's still far longer than an AOE game) but those of us who are more casual players who can only devote a few hours per week.

pyj99
03-08-2006, 19:20
I really don't understand people saying "stop bitching! you are only customers and CA can do what they want".

Firts of all complaining doesn't equal to "bitching"

It is because we are only customers , that we should continue to express our concerns/dissatisfactions on these forums. And the sooner the better This is the only way that we can influence CA decisions over the current (and future) game development.

If you read the post from Wikiman and Dutch at the .com, they acknowledge that forum comments and list of things like "Top 10 wishes for TW next game" are seriously taken into account. They also acknowledge that we have to react early if we want to see things change in expansion or future games.

About the siege/load bug (which was a game breaker for some kind of player), I am quite sure that it would not have been corrected if some people had not been so vocal on the internet and shown that it was a serious issue for a good percentage of the gamers.

PYJ99

pyj99
03-08-2006, 19:47
BTW, it was announced on the .com that the next "full" TW game (after MTW2) will be based on years and not turns.

Yeah!

Puzz3D
03-08-2006, 20:36
About the siege/load bug (which was a game breaker for some kind of player), I am quite sure that it would not have been corrected if some people had not been so vocal on the internet and shown that it was a serious issue for a good percentage of the gamers.
What's really embarrassing about that is it wasn't a bug. It was designed to work that way! However, this design feature was never mentioned by CA until someone in the player community discovered it. Once it was revealed, we were expected to believe that it was good that the AI forgot its strategic plans between saves. I think this was an attempt at damage control. When that failed, discussion of the matter at the official site was forbidden. In the end, they changed the way load/save works because they couldn't control discussion on the unofficial sites.



BTW, it was announced on the .com that the next "full" TW game (after MTW2) will be based on years and not turns.
Because it's already too late to do anything about it for MTW2. I hope the marketing experts haven't completely taken over the development of the series. People like that aren't particularly innovative. They want to turn things into a copy of something that's already successful.

Geoffrey S
03-08-2006, 20:52
Well when Spartan Total war was about announced it was even worse.
True. Cheap shots about consoles being 'dumbed down' and for 'kiddies' are so easy.

I really don't understand people saying "stop bitching! you are only customers and CA can do what they want".

Firts of all complaining doesn't equal to "bitching"
Agreed, but some posters tend to go over the line from valid complaints to bitching. Not all posters admittedly, but numerous posts largely based on conjecture complaining about a game only recently announced and which still has quite a development period to get through gets on my nerves just a little.

That said, there'd be a few less posts based on hot air if CA released more information to fill the void. Still, there's enough time for that and I do presume refining an existing engine can only smooth over rough edges.

A.Saturnus
03-08-2006, 20:57
Maybe I'm missing something, but if kings, generals, etc. age two years per turn, and the typical campaign will last about 225 turns, that's about 450 years. And what is the approximate date span - 1087-1530? So it's not like you'd likely have a campaign where you finish during the reign of the same king/emperor/sultan, etc. you started with, or even his son, or grandson. I don't see a big problem in terms of reducing realism vis a vis the timespan and pace.


No, you misunderstand. Characters don't age two years per turn but a year per two turns. So character-wise 225 turns are 113 years. And that's not approximately date span 1087 to 1530.
As I understand it, historical dates are not just hidden behind turn numbers, they are gone.

Keba
03-08-2006, 21:03
Well, there may be whole lot of generations there. I am not an expert on medieval history (my limit are the Franks and the Dark Ages), but I do know that the life expectancy among the Franks was 30 years. That means, you get a family member with 14, he lasts for 16 years, that is, 32 turns.

That way, we fit a whole lot of rulers into the game (of course, some factions' leaders would last longer).

econ21
03-08-2006, 21:24
...but I do know that the life expectancy among the Franks was 30 years. That means, you get a family member with 14, he lasts for 16 years, that is, 32 turns.

[Deviating off-topic] If it is anything like today, low life expectancy primarily reflects high child and especially infant mortality. If you make it to 14[1], you'd be expected to live for much more than 16 years. I'd guess Franks' conditional life expectancy at 15 was 50-60 years.

[1]And more generally, life expectancy figures are for at birth; if you make it to 14, your expected lifetime is higher.

Nelson
03-08-2006, 22:59
The game will cover a period of history approximating the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Each turn will reflect some subset of this. That’s fine by me. The only way for years and seasons to work is by drastically reducing the timeframe of the campaigns as was done in Shogun. Since a very broad sweep of time is the goal the whole year issue becomes something of an impediment to immersion because it can become a constant reminder that we have deviated a long way from history. And who else but the historically aware notice? I notice and it doesn’t help me to enjoy myself one bit to know that I have conquered Gaul with hastati almost two centuries before Caesar did so with Marian legions.

Consequently, I tend not to pay much attention to the time scale in TW because it usually breaks down at some point or other anyway. Movement rates (either by land or sea) have never consistently made sense. Player triggered events like the Marian Reforms can occur far too early and some historic events such as the Mongol Invasion can be foreseen with clarity. If no one was wearing full plate in 1250 but there we are with plate covered knights, what is the year designation doing for us? What would it add? If the time scale is bound to be distorted why not chuck it altogether? I do wonder how famous battles will be marked. Will they have no year or will they be dropped?

If it were up to me, TW would evolve into a hardcore historic war game/simulator. I realize that it has not and likely never will do this to the degree that I want. As long as M2:TW avoids any stunning omissions or blunders, I’ll expect to have a really good time with it. The year/turn decision is no such mistake IMO.

Now, where are the moats???

Voigtkampf
03-09-2006, 10:44
Uh, I have given up the attempt to figure out how this turn-years thing in MTW2 system will work, my poor grey cells were approaching the point of self-destruction. Anyway, if it doesn’t work, this issue is related to SP alone, and will be - hopefully - easy to mod.

Yes, where are the moats? :knight:

Servius
03-09-2006, 12:52
Personally, I just wish they'd have two modes: Historical and TiVo mode. Historical mode would cover the 500+ years, but do it with 2 turns per year, so 1,000+ turns. Whether anyone wanted to play that many would be up to the player. The TiVo mode would be the one CA seems to be designing, where the 500+ years are covered in 225 6-month-long seasons (so 112 game year turns).

Yeah, moats would be cool.

hellenes
03-09-2006, 14:18
Personally, I just wish they'd have two modes: Historical and TiVo mode. Historical mode would cover the 500+ years, but do it with 2 turns per year, so 1,000+ turns. Whether anyone wanted to play that many would be up to the player. The TiVo mode would be the one CA seems to be designing, where the 500+ years are covered in 225 6-month-long seasons (so 112 game year turns).

Yeah, moats would be cool.

But you see the "historical"/Wargaming mode would be preffered since anyone playing the other one would be throwned upon...as a brainless RTS fastclicker.
Do you know anyone playing on arcade mode?

Hellenes

Rufus
03-09-2006, 18:05
No, you misunderstand. Characters don't age two years per turn but a year per two turns. So character-wise 225 turns are 113 years. And that's not approximately date span 1087 to 1530.
As I understand it, historical dates are not just hidden behind turn numbers, they are gone.


Well I'm OK with the typical campaign lasting 225 turns, but if characters age a year per two turns, that stretches credulity too much for me, whether the date is on your screen or not. In that case, when your campaign starts with King Beavis IV, your army will have basic spearmen, light cavalry and the like, and your castles will be basic forts. But then just a few generations later, you finish the game with his grandson King Beavis VI, whose armies include full plate-armor clad knights, cannons and pikemen, and whose castles are massive citadels, and whose naval fleet discovered America?

Yes, that is a step too far in the direction of Age of Empires. A shorter campaign is fine with me, but the characters' lifespan should at least approximate reality, including the pace of historical developments ...

Servius
03-09-2006, 18:57
@ hellenes: RTW is (IMO) arcade-mode
@ A.Saturnus: No, it's actually 1 character year = 4 historical years.

1 game turn = 6 game months
2 game turns = 1 game year, which also = 1 character year

MTW2 will span from about 1050-1600, which = 550 historical years. It will span that time in 225 game turns. So...

550 historical years / 225 turns = 2 historical years per turn

So...
1 character year = 2 turns
2 turns = 4 historical years, therefore
1 character year = 4 historical years

Orda Khan
03-09-2006, 20:23
So...
1 character year = 2 turns
2 turns = 4 historical years, therefore
1 character year = 4 historical years
.....Erm.......So when my faction heir is 10 he should really be 40?? That does not sound too good to me

..........Orda

A.Saturnus
03-09-2006, 20:54
@ hellenes: RTW is (IMO) arcade-mode
@ A.Saturnus: No, it's actually 1 character year = 4 historical years.

1 game turn = 6 game months
2 game turns = 1 game year, which also = 1 character year

MTW2 will span from about 1050-1600, which = 550 historical years. It will span that time in 225 game turns. So...

550 historical years / 225 turns = 2 historical years per turn

So...
1 character year = 2 turns
2 turns = 4 historical years, therefore
1 character year = 4 historical years

Err, that's what I said...

Rufus
03-09-2006, 21:03
Has CA yet explained why the character years can't be about the same as historical years? I understand the "TiVo" approach and actually can appreciate it because a 225-turn campaign is about right for me based on how much time I can devote to it. Otherwise, a campaign would drag on for months and months of real time ... :dizzy2: But I don't like the thought of the 225-turn campaign spanning only a few generations of characters, especially if those 225 turns are supposed to span all of medieval history "TiVo" style. Can CA pace the characters' lives more realistically and apply the TiVo concept to them too? That way your first king's grandson isn't the one you discover America with or end the game with. What is CA's rationale for two turns = 1 character year?

Cesare diBorja
03-09-2006, 21:07
Hopefully, CA will leave the timescale moddable this time for those whom wish to expand on this idea. Then I could live with it. The Conch of Disputatio would be put away for the time being.


Yaaarrrrrrrr!

diBorgia


450years=14 generations, Medievally speaking!

Orda Khan
03-09-2006, 21:26
I fail to see what is so bad about a SP campaign that lasts weeks or even months. Surely that kind of immersion is what constitutes a truly great game?

.......Orda

Rufus
03-09-2006, 21:42
I fail to see what is so bad about a SP campaign that lasts weeks or even months. Surely that kind of immersion is what constitutes a truly great game?

.......Orda

It's just a matter of personal preference. In my case, I only have time to play maybe 3-5 hours per week, so one 225-turn campaign might take a month. That's fine - that's just long enough to hold my interest. But beyond that, I'm likely to start losing interest in a particular campaign. Playing one campaign at a time, I would hate to think it would take over two years to play all the factions once!

At the same time, I also dislike the RTS games where you rush through entire "historical" eras in a few hours. Hence I think the TW games have struck a good balance, including the 225-turn benchmark being discussed here.

However, for 225 turns to span only a few character-generations, while covering the equivalent of five centuries, stretches credulity too much.

CA - If you're going to TiVo the Middle Ages, at least also TiVo the lifespans of our kings and generals too!

econ21
03-09-2006, 21:48
How long does a 255 turn Total War game last?

Judging by the PBMs, I would say 10 years of RTW (20 turns) takes a "normal" person around a week to play. (That is to say, squeezing it in at evenings or weekends). Maybe quicker if it is the early game, but perhaps longer if it is the late game and you are fighting about 3 major battles each turn (see my entry for the Heirs of Alexander PBM).

255 turns sounds ample to me. I suspect the typical MTW PBM was concluded in fewer turns. And they did take weeks, often months.

Orda Khan
03-09-2006, 21:56
I understand your situation Rufus, honestly I do. Modern life leaves such little time for ourselves and whatever spare time we get is so precious. This is why I really hope CA consider an 'eras' approach. That being said, the thought of a long, drawn out campaign that makes you feel like you really have achieved something appeals to me more than a Saturday night blitz...and we have the game for keeps, so that means we have years if we please

........Orda

General4Hire
03-09-2006, 22:24
not all of us are deadbeat dad's/husbands. No offense to anyone, but I work 60 hours a week and still have as much time as I want to play the game since I don't have a train of wives and children attached to me. What good are they if they're stopping you from doing what you want to do? lol...

Just kidding of course, but the bottom line is that companies should not be making games with the family in mind. Make the game for those who have time to play it thoroughly...ya know, I would say MOST players are in their mid 20's or so, on average. Any 25 year old who has so many obligations that they can't play more than 3 hours a week obviously was foolish and had kids too early, or doesn't know how to budget their time.

I just don't buy "i don't have time" as a viable reason to alter things that weren't a problem to begin with....

nothing offensive about that post, you might not like it, but it's not breaking any rules...

stop having 4 kids before you're 30 and don't get married to someone who's going to be demanding of your time. Hell, you shouldn't even BE married unless you're 30+ heh. It's 2006, not 1946.

Rufus
03-09-2006, 22:44
not all of us are deadbeat dad's/husbands. No offense to anyone, but I work 60 hours a week and still have as much time as I want to play the game since I don't have a train of wives and children attached to me. What good are they if they're stopping you from doing what you want to do? lol...

Just kidding of course, but the bottom line is that companies should not be making games with the family in mind. Make the game for those who have time to play it thoroughly...ya know, I would say MOST players are in their mid 20's or so, on average. Any 25 year old who has so many obligations that they can't play more than 3 hours a week obviously was foolish and had kids too early, or doesn't know how to budget their time.

I just don't buy "i don't have time" as a viable reason to alter things that weren't a problem to begin with....

nothing offensive about that post, you might not like it, but it's not breaking any rules...

stop having 4 kids before you're 30 and don't get married to someone who's going to be demanding of your time. Hell, you shouldn't even BE married unless you're 30+ heh. It's 2006, not 1946.

I'm perfectly fine with playing the game only a few hours per week, thank you very much. I'm certainly not lamenting the other areas of my life that consume my time, all of which are far far more important than this computer game. And if you have 20, 30, or whatever hours per week to play on top of your work week, good for you.

I wouldn't care if CA made it 2 turns per year like RTW, 1 turn like MTW or 4 per year like STW. I should've said that from the beginning. I'm agnostic on the issue. I'm just saying I don't mind a 225-turn campaign either. But - and this was my more important point - if the game is paced to finish in about 220-250 turns, don't have characters' lifespans consume so many turns that you only go through a few kings' reigns before the entire medieval era has passed by.

Zenicetus
03-09-2006, 23:00
I fail to see what is so bad about a SP campaign that lasts weeks or even months. Surely that kind of immersion is what constitutes a truly great game?

If there is enough actual content in a game to hold my interest that long, then I can play for a long time. I've played games like the Baldur's Gate series that took a loooong time to finish, because it's so chock-full of content.

But for most turn-based strategy games, I'm comfortable with winning (or losing) in somewhere around 200-250 turns. Beyond that, I start to get itchy for trying a new game with a different faction, or a different strategy, or a different initial difficulty setting. I managed to finish a Roman campaign in RTW, but about 2/3 of the way through it, I was already itching to try it again as a barbarian faction, and then again as the Seleucids. I guess it's the replayability options that makes me lean towards shorter campaigns.

If I was locked into playing only one faction, then I'd expect a ton of immersive content designed just for that one faction (lots of "atmosphere", backstory etc.).... and then maybe I could get into a 400-500 turn campaign game. It would have to be really good though, and CA isn't that great on providing this level of background immersion. They're better at getting the front-end mechanics down, and then letting the player run with it.

Ideally we'd have a way to do both shorter and longer campaigns, because I know some folks like the longer games. But that's difficult where the map size is locked in (no way to make Europe twice as large, for a longer game), and there are historical constraints on how many factions are in the game. CA had to pick one campaign length, and they're going for 225 (average) turns.

Where they blew it, was trying to cover too long a timeperiod. That's what's causing all these head-scratching disconnects between character aging, seasons, and dates. It should have been split into several eras, or a main game and an expansion pack for the race to the New World.

Papewaio
03-09-2006, 23:00
Actually the median age at the Org hovers around the 30+ mark.

As for my wife... I got RTW as last years Valentines present from her... with a contract for 5 hours of gameplay per week. :balloon2:

econ21
03-09-2006, 23:04
I thought the relation between character aging and turns was about right in MTW (1 year of character age=1 turn). Your kings can have a fair whack, but are definitely mortal and, unless they inherit young, to some extent have to be in a hurry.

STW (1 year = 4 turns) was way too slow for my taste - you basically had two or three leaders for the whole game, so managing your family and the succession was not really a feature of the game. But I'm currently playing that system in EB, so may be it will be ok (EB has lots of fun traits etc to add to the mix).

RTW and M2TWs relation of 1 year of age = 2 turns means the turnover is still a little slow IMO. For example, in PBM, players typically did not want the ordeal of a full reign and so we switched to 20 turn stints, which led to the PBMs losing a lot of their appeal (playing out an entire reign meant you could really get into character and was more meaningful). But for single player purposes, I suspect I won't notice it too much.

If it is easy to mod, I'd probably do it though.

screwtype
03-10-2006, 08:57
I'm just saying I don't mind a 225-turn campaign either. But - and this was my more important point - if the game is paced to finish in about 220-250 turns, don't have characters' lifespans consume so many turns that you only go through a few kings' reigns before the entire medieval era has passed by.

I must say I'm not sure why characters have to live so long anyhow. Let's say your average general has 50 years worth of campaigning in him - two years per turn would give him a "lifespan" of only 25 turns. But is 25 turns so bad? Heck, I usually had RTW well and truly beat by turn 25.

Certainly I think 50 turns would be more than adequate for a general. That would mean he aged one year every two turns instead of one year every four.

CA are effectively giving you generals for 100 turns. That seems far too generous to me. At that rate every general will end up a 10-star general - especially given the accelerated promotion that we had in RTW.

doc_bean
03-10-2006, 14:01
Just kidding of course, but the bottom line is that companies should not be making games with the family in mind.

Companies make games to make a profit. In order to do that they have to sell games. Most people put other things in their life ahead of gaming while also buying quite a few games. It would be foolish to ignore them and cater to the wishes of a few 'hardcore' gamers.



Make the game for those who have time to play it thoroughly...ya know, I would say MOST players are in their mid 20's or so, on average.

Depends on how you look at it. Certainly a larger percentage of teenagers than of 40+ people will play games. But people in their late thirties tend to have more money to spend than teenagers. AFAIK the just-below-thirty demographic is the main target group for game magazines. Kids might game more, they aren't spending as much, and in the end, it's all about da Benjamins.




Any 25 year old who has so many obligations that they can't play more than 3 hours a week obviously was foolish and had kids too early, or doesn't know how to budget their time.

Well, I'm 23, I play about ten hours a week (when I'm in a gaming mood, i can go long stretches without playing anything), I also have a social life, a girlfriend and an afterhours cooking class to spend my time on. I have no regrets, there is more to life than games, which doesn't mean they don't have their place in it.



stop having 4 kids before you're 30 and don't get married to someone who's going to be demanding of your time. Hell, you shouldn't even BE married unless you're 30+ heh. It's 2006, not 1946.

Different people have different desires, and want different things out of life. I know people that started having kids when they were 20 and people who happily live without children, I know people who play games and people who football and people who play both, I know people working 60+ hours a week for the money, I know people working 60+ hours a week just because they like it...

All that said: I'd prefer 1y per turn ageing :laugh4:

Duke John
03-10-2006, 14:12
AFAIK the just-below-thirty demographic is the main target group for game magazines.
That can't be right. When I read a PC Game magazine it always appears as if written for teens with a focus on fireballs, big guns, etc. Only when the game is aiming for realism and accuracy is the review writting more mature. With the PC Gamer review having in bold letters: ELEPHANT MOUNTED CANNONS, then you know what time it is.

player1
03-10-2006, 14:16
That can't be right. When I read a PC Game magazine it always appears as if written for teens with a focus on fireballs, big guns, etc. Only when the game is aiming for realism and accuracy is the review writting more mature. With the PC Gamer review having in bold letters: ELEPHANT MOUNTED CANNONS, then you know what time it is.

Sounds like forums...

Kraxis
03-10-2006, 14:23
Depends on how you look at it. Certainly a larger percentage of teenagers than of 40+ people will play games. But people in their late thirties tend to have more money to spend than teenagers. AFAIK the just-below-thirty demographic is the main target group for game magazines. Kids might game more, they aren't spending as much, and in the end, it's all about da Benjamins.
Agreed... And we can all agree that people of that age are a bit more likely to not want, what we usually call ADD games here. Also, they tend to be fairly adaptive, and the TW style of games is just what these people like.

To me it sounds like they are in fact perfect customers for TW games. Complexity in battles and some strategic aspect and they will love it. But like any grownup they will not like being guided around, or have too simple games.

Makes one wonder about M2.

Rufus
03-10-2006, 16:16
Companies make games to make a profit. In order to do that they have to sell games. Most people put other things in their life ahead of gaming while also buying quite a few games. It would be foolish to ignore them and cater to the wishes of a few 'hardcore' gamers.


Good point. Economically the hardcore gamer is probably not that much more important to game publishers/developers than the casual gamer. In either case, the gamer is only buying one copy of the game, in all likelihood. So it matters little to them whether you play it 1 hour per week or 40.

Of course, hardcore gamers might be more likely to buy more (different) games than casual gamers, but maybe not. If you're playing one game 40 hours per week, I doubt there's much time to play another game, no matter hardcore you are!

The point is they can't cater too much to the hardcore gamer market.

Puzz3D
03-10-2006, 16:41
It's not a question of time for me. I have plenty of time to play games, but I went from playing Total War multiplayer 40+ hours a week to not playing at all. The reason is that with the transition from MTW MP to RTW MP multiplayer became not worth playing. It wasn't just me who quit. Almost everyone in my clan quit. I switched to RTW SP, but when the load/save behavior was uncovered, I stopped playing that as well. The gameplay has to reach a certain standard of quality to be worth spending the time and effort playing it.

Concerning the change to abstracted, turn based gameplay. Why stop at 2 time periods per turn? You could have multiple time periods per turn: one for character aging, a different one for movement distance, a different one for the economic model, a different one for the tech tree development and a different one for historical events all represented by a single turn. That way you could optimize all these phases to a campaign length of 225 turns.

Didn't the Civ game series prove that the so called average gamer doesn't care if a spearmen can beat a tank?

econ21
03-10-2006, 17:51
Didn't the Civ game series prove that the so called average gamer doesn't care if a spearmen can beat a tank?

Meh, that's close to an urban legend. I never experienced that in Civ2 nor Civ4 (I despised Civ3).

Civ4 actually has a surprisingly good combat model - I enjoy it (Civ2s combat was rather yuck). Experience gives you promotions with which to customise units (e.g. make infantry Anti-tank specialists). There is a pretty decent - and historically flavoured - rock/paper/scissors gameplay. There's also a tension between concentrating your forces - which ensures you can get good combined arms - and dispersing to avoid artillery/air bombardment. The animations make the whole thing great fun.

And - back to topic - they manage the trade-off between quantity and quality very well. For example, a WW2 style infantry unit will lose to a WW2 style tank. Maybe even two such infantry units will. But gradually, the tank will be worn down and be killable. In terms of gameplay, it seems finely judged.

Sure, a spear unit could kill a very depleted tank but you are very unlikely to experience that - the AI gets an enormous discount on upgrading its army, so it tends to have the best stuff for its tech (and I guarantee you, it will not have spear tech when you have tanks); and the player would be a schmuck to try to take on AI tanks with spearmen. It was hard enough when I tried to stop them without oil (ie with infantry and marines).

Puzz3D
03-10-2006, 18:43
There is a pretty decent - and historically flavoured - rock/paper/scissors gameplay.
That was thrown out the window in RTW. You didn't need combined arms. Cavalry ruled and the RPS is the weakest of all the games in the series.

screwtype
03-11-2006, 04:12
It's not a question of time for me. I have plenty of time to play games, but I went from playing Total War multiplayer 40+ hours a week to not playing at all. The reason is that with the transition from MTW MP to RTW MP multiplayer became not worth playing.

But CA have said about the new game that they are working hard to make MP a much better experience. They've even hired an MP veteran to help them with playtesting. Surely you must be pleased about that?

Puzz3D
03-11-2006, 14:44
But CA have said about the new game that they are working hard to make MP a much better experience. They've even hired an MP veteran to help them with playtesting. Surely you must be pleased about that?
They've had a team of players helping them for years, and now they discard that and go to one guy. How is that better?

Each version of Total War (STW, MTW, RTW) has provided a worse multiplayer environment. General statements that things are being improved are apparently meaningless. Even 1.5 years after release, the state of RTW MP is an embarrassment. I played RTW online a couple of months ago and could only get 2 battles played in 3 hours, and each battle was very short. In STW, you could get 2 or 3 battles per hour, and the gameplay was better.

doc_bean
03-11-2006, 18:01
That can't be right. When I read a PC Game magazine it always appears as if written for teens with a focus on fireballs, big guns, etc. Only when the game is aiming for realism and accuracy is the review writting more mature. With the PC Gamer review having in bold letters: ELEPHANT MOUNTED CANNONS, then you know what time it is.

Heh, possibly different magazines cater tod ifferent demographics. There might also be a difference between the US and Europe.


Agreed... And we can all agree that people of that age are a bit more likely to not want, what we usually call ADD games here. Also, they tend to be fairly adaptive, and the TW style of games is just what these people like.

When I'm overworked I prefer blowing stuff up to grand strategy.I just want to release some steam and get instant gratification. Different people have different desires...


Of course, hardcore gamers might be more likely to buy more (different) games than casual gamers, but maybe not. If you're playing one game 40 hours per week, I doubt there's much time to play another game, no matter hardcore you are!

I think the 'hardcore' market has shifted towards MMORPGs which demand enormous amounts of time. Leaves little time for other games indeed.


Didn't the Civ game series prove that the so called average gamer doesn't care if a spearmen can beat a tank?

Civ is highly abstracted, to me it feels like a boardgame rather than a 'normal PC game' (I'm not sure if it's based on the boardgame by the same name, but it was probably a big inspiration). It certainly isn't a simulation of history, like TW games are/used to be.

Kraxis
03-11-2006, 18:38
When I'm overworked I prefer blowing stuff up to grand strategy.I just want to release some steam and get instant gratification. Different people have different desires...
Sure, same for me. But we tend to look with more loving caring eyes on the game that is stimulating. Simple games are great for relaxing/unwinding and I have played enough of them to call myself a connaisseur of those. But people of that group tend to be more impressed with things that stimulate their minds.

Puzz3D
03-12-2006, 00:47
Civ is highly abstracted, to me it feels like a boardgame rather than a 'normal PC game'.
Yes, but the point is Total War is moving in that direction. You are now going to have unit types spanning many hundreds of years on the battlefield at the same time, and, with Total War's upgrade and combat bonus system, earlier units may well be able to beat units that came hundreds of years later.

Brighdaasa
03-12-2006, 02:32
Civ is highly abstracted, to me it feels like a boardgame rather than a 'normal PC game' (I'm not sure if it's based on the boardgame by the same name, but it was probably a big inspiration)

for the record: it's the boardgame that was based on civ (civ3 iirc)

OT: i would be very happy if they stuck more to mtw and stw gameplay than the direction now taken, but alas, that's not going to happen as it seems CA have a completely different vision for the future of the Total War series.
Please oh please go back to your roots. Don't fix it if it's not broken!

Divinus Arma
03-12-2006, 05:12
Well. I am grateful that Wikiman popped his head in here. Seems he got out of dodge rather quickly.

His first post was the most telling.


Guys, we ain't gonna hear nothin'.

doc_bean
03-12-2006, 11:23
for the record: it's the boardgame that was based on civ (civ3 iirc)


I was talking about the originalCivilization (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/71), not

Sid Meier's Civilization (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/3633) which is a recent boardgame.

For the record I've never played either, but the description of the original Civilization boardgame makes it look very similar to the videogame.


Yes, but the point is Total War is moving in that direction. You are now going to have unit types spanning many hundreds of years on the battlefield at the same time, and, with Total War's upgrade and combat bonus system, earlier units may well be able to beat units that came hundreds of years later.

I'm not sure about early units beating late ones, we'll have to wait and see. But I agree TW is moving towards a more 'gamey' approach. I find it odd, considering STW was first intended to be a rather standard RTS game to cash in on the craze. They might have been serious when they said Rome was the game they had always intended to make, kill speeds and all :dizzy2:

Orda Khan
03-13-2006, 13:38
When all is speculation, how do any of us know which way MTW II is headed? The most we can do is guess

......Orda

Delenda est Carthago
03-16-2006, 16:48
It's a game. Civ has had a similar system for over a decade and it works wonderfully there.

I thought the campaign map was the real weakness of RTW and am glad they are trying new things to improve it.

If you want to play MTW, play MTW, this is a sequel and not a remake. I'll wait until the game is released before passing judgement.

Civ has more than 225 turns. That is what really is worrying me. I like to play slowly, and 225 will NOT be enough for me. Even if you can mod it, the game will have been balanced for 225 turns, so all the stuff will happen before then.

This smells like Sega telling CA to dilute their strategy game down for the mass market. (Sega: "10 year olds want to finish a game in 1 day" CA: "our campaigns can take weeks to finish" Sega: "too long, make it shorter. Oh, and get rid of those bows as well, replace thm with elephants, elephants with cannons. Failing that, give the people nukes" CA: "oh, ok")

Puzz3D
03-16-2006, 17:35
Civ has more than 225 turns. That is what really is worrying me. I like to play slowly, and 225 will NOT be enough for me. Even if you can mod it, the game will have been balanced for 225 turns, so all the stuff will happen before then.
I use a slower pace as well. For instance, there is no way I could win an RTW campaign in 225 turns. I do this hoping that a few of the AI factions will emerge as a challenging opponent.


This smells like Sega telling CA to dilute their strategy game down for the mass market.
I remember a post by Jerome right after RTW was released, and he was very pleased that he had been able to satisfy all the design requirements. As I recall, he said that had been a difficult task.

Back during MTW/VI, Eat Cold Steel posted that Activision wanted aging of generals removed from the game. He tried to satisfy that demand and keep his original aging of generals feature by introducing the green_generals command line option. Unfortunately, that introduced the "all kings die at 56 years old" bug. The CA programmers made another patch afterhours on their own time to fix it. We were really fortunate that LongJohn also fixed the "infinite charge" bug, battlefield upgrades were removed from MP and we got some cost adjustments on units, but unfortunately the spears weren't adjusted.

player1
03-16-2006, 19:13
Civ has more than 225 turns.

But Civ turns are at least 3 time quicker due to lack of RTS battles.

Still, Civ4 does have slower modes of the game like epic and marathon.

eat cold steel
03-16-2006, 20:55
It's been a while since VI so I guess it's no harm to tell you guys a little story. That green general thing didn't exactly happened as described. I knew Activision didn't want to test any new features at the last minute so I added the aging thing without telling anyone. It was my fault for introducing the 56 years old bug in the first place and no one was looking out for age related bugs because no one knew I fiddled with it :oops: (it was left over debug code. What a noob :shame:)

As for making the patch in our own time that really wasn't much of a big deal for me personally, while no time was scheduled for a patch, it was easy enough to squeeze it in my regular hours, the hard thing was getting Activision to release it. I was told they cannot released anything under the Activision name without QA'ing it themselves, which was the sticking point. There were talks of unofficial patch release but in the end Activision did QA it and gave it the all clear for release. I don't know what happened exactly but I am guessing my boss had a few chats with various Activision people and managed to get an spare hour out of their QA team in the end.

Anyway it was highly embarrassing for me and I was really glad that other programmers also had fixes they wanted to added otherwise the VI patch would have became a patch to fix my personal bug, or rather, it wouldn't have been released at all.:sweatdrop:

hellenes
03-16-2006, 21:18
It's been a while since VI so I guess it's no harm to tell you guys a little story. That green general thing didn't exactly happened as described. I knew Activision didn't want to test any new features at the last minute so I added the aging thing without telling anyone. It was my fault for introducing the 56 years old bug in the first place and no one was looking out for age related bugs because no one knew I fiddled with it :oops: (it was left over debug code. What a noob :shame:)

As for making the patch in our own time that really wasn't much of a big deal for me personally, while no time was scheduled for a patch, it was easy enough to squeeze it in my regular hours, the hard thing was getting Activision to release it. I was told they cannot released anything under the Activision name without QA'ing it themselves, which was the sticking point. There were talks of unofficial patch release but in the end Activision did QA it and gave it the all clear for release. I don't know what happened exactly but I am guessing my boss had a few chats with various Activision people and managed to get an spare hour out of their QA team in the end.

Anyway it was highly embarrassing for me and I was really glad that other programmers also had fixes they wanted to added otherwise the VI patch would have became a patch to fix my personal bug, or rather, it wouldn't have been released at all.:sweatdrop:

ECS

An interesting story indeed...
Since I guess that youre not part of the Oz/TotalWarrior team, I suspect that the UK team is making the revolutionary 3rd Total War engine that will use the 5th game.
Its very early but I feel obliged to ask this question:
Will Multiplayer get a focus increase?
So youll not have to resort to invasive rootkits made by hackers (like Starforce)?
So the CD Key actually is worth the ink its printed in?
It hurts me to know that the scum that downloaded RTW off emule enjoys the game same as a legitimate customer (as myself) that paid for it.

Hellenes

eat cold steel
03-16-2006, 21:27
I am on the total warrior team, I am in no position to answer any of your questions.

EDIT: or questions about TWr for that matter, however I am aways up for a friendy chit chat.

Puzz3D
03-16-2006, 21:47
Anyway it was highly embarrassing for me and I was really glad that other programmers also had fixes they wanted to added otherwise the VI patch would have became a patch to fix my personal bug, or rather, it wouldn't have been released at all.:sweatdrop:
It was a good patch, and brought MTW/VI to a higher level of gameplay than I though was going to be achieved. I know aging had to be adjusted more than once because I was the one feeding back test results of the distribution of deaths. Attrition rate for sieging armies was also finetuned in that patch. I also feel it provides the best multiplayer engine in the series, and you can achieve excellent gameplay in MP with modded unit stats. Most people say MTW/VI gives the most challenging campaign of all the Total War games. You did an outstanding job on that Eat Cold Steel, and I'm really happy to see your still there at CA.

Aging is an important feature of the strategic game, and I was glad to see someone sticking their neck out to make the game better. That episode with the green generals and the programming team's willingness to give it one more pass made it clear to me that the programming team at CA wants to make great and innovative games. Intrepid sidekick and Jerome were also around here a lot getting input for RTW v1.3, and the final RTW v1.5 brought the RTW campaign to a state where I play and enjoy it without any mods.

Being an engineer myself, what gets me upset is if it appears that the programming team is being hamstrung by the publisher, management or PR people or overloaded with too many demands given the time and materials available. The consumer suffers because he/she doesn't get the best game possible. A game with 50 working features is better than a game with 100 features where 50 of them don't work right.

I'm not going to ask you any question about what you're doing because I don't want you to get into any trouble. Thanks for your post.

Delenda est Carthago
03-16-2006, 22:19
It's been a while since VI so I guess it's no harm to tell you guys a little story. That green general thing didn't exactly happened as described. I knew Activision didn't want to test any new features at the last minute so I added the aging thing without telling anyone. It was my fault for introducing the 56 years old bug in the first place and no one was looking out for age related bugs because no one knew I fiddled with it :oops: (it was left over debug code. What a noob :shame:)

As for making the patch in our own time that really wasn't much of a big deal for me personally, while no time was scheduled for a patch, it was easy enough to squeeze it in my regular hours, the hard thing was getting Activision to release it. I was told they cannot released anything under the Activision name without QA'ing it themselves, which was the sticking point. There were talks of unofficial patch release but in the end Activision did QA it and gave it the all clear for release. I don't know what happened exactly but I am guessing my boss had a few chats with various Activision people and managed to get an spare hour out of their QA team in the end.

Anyway it was highly embarrassing for me and I was really glad that other programmers also had fixes they wanted to added otherwise the VI patch would have became a patch to fix my personal bug, or rather, it wouldn't have been released at all.:sweatdrop:

Wow, thanks ECS. That was interesting, and brave to admit to that. Nice one!

Kraxis
03-16-2006, 23:41
Brave indeed... I remember how many of us were outraged about this age issue. Luckily I take it that we aren't anymore.:sweatdrop:

In any case I'm happy to see that there are still developers who will do stuff, secretly and under the table, if they believe it will be better for their product. For that alone you would have gotten my respect ECS.:bow: Not that I didn't respect you already.~;)

I hope there are more like you in CA...

And agreed with Puzz3D, it was indeed a good patch. It fixed a lot of stuff.

Perec_Dojo
03-19-2006, 21:54
As a veteran of the GalCiv2 forums, it is interesting to see similar issues appear here. What we learned from that game, where each turn represents 1week in an environment of galactic conquest, was that decisions which seem to hide "fuzzy math" under the hood and which randomly decrease immersion for seemingly no good reason are the mark of a decision-making process by developers centering on AI improvements.

To be plain, I believe (and any CA guys correct or confirm this if you are legally able) that CA is currently working on a massive AI upgrade to move towards a "non-cheating" AI similar to what Stardock developed for GC2. However, what GC2 proved was that while this was possible, it required many gameplay and game immersion sacrifices, the game becomes more generic, etc. There is a lot of debate at SD's official forums on this issue (of course, as an independent developer they are working with far fewer constraints on player feedback than CA, and can afford to be responsive now that they have a hit on their hands).

The real question is whether this kind of advanced AI is a good fit for a historical game. To me, the atmosphere was always the selling point of TW gaming for me. This trumped even realism. Note, for those who remember, that Shogun was consciously modeled after, not necessarily Japanese history textbooks, but Kurosawa! M:TW took a step away from that with no cinematic analogues (Chimes at Midnight? Braveheart even?), and Rome was the final step away from cinematic representation to some sort of fantasy world, with some civ elements, a Frankenstein really. Now they want to graft on another element, good campaign AI, under all the other pressures, and only time will tell if it breaks the series for good until the introduction of a brand new engine.

Stardock made their gameplay sacrifices with their eyes open, and are being rewarded for their achievement of a one-of-a-kind strategic AI. The players have grumbled about details, but at the end of the day the experience is unique. The TW unique experience was always the immersion of the tactical battles, the feeling that you were fighting a battle not of actual history, but of an exciting movie based on that history. This movie feel, IMO, is the gameplay logic to which CA should owe it's first allegience, and the element on which it made its fortunes so many years ago.

econ21
03-20-2006, 00:58
"...Rome was the final step away from cinematic representation to some sort of fantasy world..."

Hope you are right about the strategic AI, but I disagree about RTW not being cinematic. It's hard not to see the echoes of the opening scene of the film Gladiator in the look and feel of RTW battles. The vastly better graphics are a big boost in raising the immersion. I guess I'm spoilt, but after the visual splendours of RTW (perfected in RTR and EB), it's hard to go back to the stick men of STW and MTW.

And I really don't buy the argument that RTW is more of a fantasy world than STW and MTW. Take out Egypt and one or two whacky units, and you have the potential for much more historical armies than STW or MTW. You have very distinct army styles - Roman, horse archer, phalanx, barbarian and hybrid. It's the STW and MTW faction armies that look generic by contrast.

Perec_Dojo
03-20-2006, 01:40
Hope you are right about the strategic AI, but I disagree about RTW not being cinematic. It's hard not to see the echoes of the opening scene of the film Gladiator in the look and feel of RTW battles. The vastly better graphics are a big boost in raising the immersion. I guess I'm spoilt, but after the visual splendours of RTW (perfected in RTR and EB), it's hard to go back to the stick men of STW and MTW.

And I really don't buy the argument that RTW is more of a fantasy world than STW and MTW. Take out Egypt and one or two whacky units, and you have the potential for much more historical armies than STW or MTW. You have very distinct army styles - Roman, horse archer, phalanx, barbarian and hybrid. It's the STW and MTW faction armies that look generic by contrast.

I know that many will disagree with me, but although on the merits (better graphics, more units, complexity, etc.) it would be easy to argue that there is a clear progression towards more immersion from Shogun to Rome, I can't shake the feeling that it is just the opposite. Maybe it's the music, or maybe I just prefer Feudal Japan, but somehow th more strategic and tactical options I had and the more graphical eye candy they put on this concept, the less I believed the scenario. It's too big, somehow. I think the story of the strife in Japan of that period is a much more focused one, as opposed to the sprawl of later games. The reasons for war amongst these factions was clear, as they were all rivals to the same seat of power. In Europe this was not so, and the city-state model meant that the things that states competed for were far different (and difficult to model). I would prefer (and I think somebody mentioned this elsewhere) a game that only modeled a smaller part of history, which would allow for fewer tech tree problems, and turn length modeling issues, and allow for a better and more focused AI.

CA is trying to do so much that they are losing the "flavor of history" that they captured so well in the first game (even if they never got all the historical details right in any game). I don't want complete accuracy, dammit, I want the game to have "truthiness"!

econ21
03-20-2006, 10:46
I know that many will disagree with me, but although on the merits (better graphics, more units, complexity, etc.) it would be easy to argue that there is a clear progression towards more immersion from Shogun to Rome, I can't shake the feeling that it is just the opposite. Maybe it's the music, or maybe I just prefer Feudal Japan, but somehow th more strategic and tactical options I had and the more graphical eye candy they put on this concept, the less I believed the scenario. It's too big, somehow.

Well, I suspect most of the old timers here would agree with you that Shogun was more immersive. And you might be onto something with the "too big" point. The immersiveness of Shogun seemed to come from small features that remind me a little of those very short Oriental poems. In fact some of those features were Oriental poems (the sad lines you hear when a faction line dies out). There was also the evocative music, the excellent voice acting by Burt Kwok, the ninja movies, the throne room etc. Seen objectively and in isolation, they are all relatively minor but somehow collectively they allowed your imagination to take off. I suppose you could do something similar with games of the scope of MTW and RTW, but it would be a much bigger effort (that of Shogun multiplied by at least the number of different cultures in the later games).

IceTorque
03-20-2006, 17:10
Did I hear old timer.............I resemble that.

I agree STW was the most immersive Tw game to date. I used to shout out loud at the monitor, mimmicking the games japanese accent, when a foolish clan declared war on me. I miss the throne room where I could drool over my empire map, and yearned for more characters/advisors to interact with.
STW had harvests, 4 turns per year, one era, throne room orders for diplomats, drop on target and forget agents on the strat map. I was not concerned what date it was. I just played, and wished it had more regions and clans so the game did'nt end so quick.

I also agree that RTW is too big, not in size but micro-management, just too many pieces on the board. If the AI could concentrate it's forces similar to how it did with the old style maps. To make battles less frequent but way more epic. Or perhaps having super sized stacks similar to MTW's crusader stacks with the extra units drip fed and pre-ordered onto the battlefield. Coming over the hill old style. I think having em all lined up on the sidelines and the sideline itself reduces the immersion just a tad.

Puzz3D
03-20-2006, 19:49
The TW unique experience was always the immersion of the tactical battles, the feeling that you were fighting a battle not of actual history, but of an exciting movie based on that history. This movie feel, IMO, is the gameplay logic to which CA should owe it's first allegience, and the element on which it made its fortunes so many years ago.
STW battles didn't play like a movie. The battles in STW were based on Sun Tzu not Kurosawa. The problem with the battles in RTW is that CA tried to make them play like a movie. Ian Roxburgh even said in an interview that's what they were doing. Now we have exploding rocks, stuff moving around at unrealistically fast speeds, arrows that have the velocity of small rockets, men and horses leaping way up into the air, elephants throwing men 50 meters or more, fire arrows that incinerate man and horse in 5 seconds, skirmishers that run nearly as fast as horses, units that have the acceleration characteristics of a school of fish, cantabrian circle that's invulnerable to arrows, cavalry that can circle so fast that an infantry unit can't even rotate in place fast enough to maintain facing and battles that last about as long as a battle does in a movie such as that battle at the beginning of the movie Gladiator.

Perec_Dojo
03-20-2006, 20:10
STW battles didn't play like a movie. The battles in STW were based on Sun Tzu not Kurosawa. The problem with the battles in RTW is that CA tried to make them play like a movie. Ian Roxburgh even said in an interview that's what they were doing. Now we have exploding rocks, stuff moving around at unrealistically fast speeds, arrows that have the velocity of small rockets, men and horses leaping way up into the air, elephants throwing men 50 meters or more, fire arrows that incinerate man and horse in 5 seconds, skirmishers that run nearly as fast as horses, units that have the acceleration characteristics of a school of fish, cantabrian circle that's invulnerable to arrows, cavalry that can circle so fast that an infantry unit can't even rotate in place fast enough to maintain facing and battles that last about as long as a battle does in a movie such as that battle at the beginning of the movie Gladiator.

I agree with your point of view there, but I think that people don't give movies enough credit for immersive feel. Even Gladiator and Braveheart are not as ridiculous and overdone as the battles in RTW. The elements you describe are less immersive, because they seem so crazy and artificial. I guess here we're talking about the difference between a movie that attempts to portray a somewhat realistic battle, and and one that that is purely action or style oriented or which has fantasy elements. The RTW battles feel like the latter to me due to the lack of control over units, the crazy school of fish cavalry, etc, whereas STW had well ordered soldiers facing each other in battle (never mind that this picture of Japanese battle was not strictly realistic, it did feel like a kurosawa film, and that was a stated goal for the devs on that project). A lot might have to do with the sound, which I unreservedly say was best in STW. Battlefield sound and voice in RTW was pretty corny.

I think that CA always wanted that movie feel on all their projects, but as with most VG designers, the less they had to work with technologically, the better their results. To give an example, The original Wing Commander was extremely cinematic IMO even though the technology didn't allow elaborate cut scenes, etc. Simple branching missions and anonymous "Blue Hair" character was enough. By WC2 you had cut-scenes and corny story, and by the time you had a real Wing Commander movie it was the worst piece of crap ever! VG designers are not movie directors, and the more they try to be the worse their results. I would consider the Metal Gear/Metal Gear Solid games to be another example of this.

Puzz3D
03-20-2006, 21:00
Each chapter of this STW Game Guide http://www.gamespot.com/gamespot/guides/pc/shogun/index.html is based on a principle of Sun Tzu not Kurosawa. The information comes from Creative Assembly. I also have the Official Strategy Guide and again it's Sun Tzu on which the game is based. STW even has variable length of daylight depending on the season which just goes to show how much the game was based on principles of war.

For me, the fact that the battles followed principles helped create the feeling that they were real. The weather helped as well. Ironically, RTW with its better graphics seems less real. Now in MTW2 we will have combo moves and finishing moves. Apparently, everyone who falls will have a finishing move applied to him. You wouldn't have any wounded men left on the battlefield if that was the case. It's a clear departure from believability. They even recommend zooming in to see this unrealistic stuff close up. How do they expect you to control your army if you're zoomed in? Do they care if you can control the army anymore? It seems that this game is headed for a gameplay where you draw a box around all of your units, click on the enemy general and then sit back and watch.

Perec_Dojo
03-20-2006, 21:19
Each chapter of this STW Game Guide http://www.gamespot.com/gamespot/guides/pc/shogun/index.html is based on a principle of Sun Tzu not Kurosawa. The information comes from Creative Assembly. I also have the Official Strategy Guide and again it's Sun Tzu on which the game is based.


Agreed that the tactics of the game are based on Sun Tzu.

I'm not trying to be argumentative, but the look and feel of the game was always intended to be based on Kurosawa, and this was stated many times by developers in these forums and elsewhere. Anybody familiar with Kurosawa's films can see this. These are not mutually exclusive terms anyway. Sun Tzu was an ancient warrior who wrote a book about strategy, Kurosawa was a modern film maker who made many movies about fuedal japan. It would of course be ridiculous of me to assert that the game is based on the war theories of Kurosawa any more than I would say that Medal of Honor was based on the military strategy of Steven Spielberg.

Similarly it would be equally ridiculous to say that the look and feel of the game is based on the aesthetic sensibilities of Sun Tzu, which would be like attributing the immersive feel of Medal of Honor to George Patton or Dwight Eisenhower!

Orda Khan
03-21-2006, 00:33
Unfortunately, even with new films, special effects are the selling points. There is a constant striving to go one better each time. I saw the latest King Kong and to be honest, I thought the film and storyline suffered because of stupid special effects. There is no room for imagination, you do not need blood and gore to realise there would have been blood and gore but it is what sells these days and PC games are another example of this

........Orda

Perec_Dojo
03-21-2006, 02:23
Unfortunately, even with new films, special effects are the selling points. There is a constant striving to go one better each time. I saw the latest King Kong and to be honest, I thought the film and storyline suffered because of stupid special effects. There is no room for imagination, you do not need blood and gore to realise there would have been blood and gore but it is what sells these days and PC games are another example of this

........Orda

Agreed, although not all films are like this. This dynamic in films (and video games, for that matter) where special effects overwhelm other film elements is a byproduct of the immense growth in technical resources available to filmmakers and game developers over a relatively short period of time. Since the professionals that work in these media are extremely aware of their technical limitations, the easy availability of technical solutions generally trumps other considerations (like story/gameplay) in the development process, at least during time periods where the rate of technical innovation is high. In periods where that rate plateaus, developers and filmmakers are forced to rely on other aspects of the creative process, typically resulting in a better rate of enduring artistic success, since story or gameplay is what people remember after the splendor has faded.

For examples of a plateau period that produced great PC games, I would say that the time from about 1987-1994 are without peer. In the era before widespread availability of accelerated graphics cards the level of innovation in game design was very high, and many classic games with exceptional gameplay come from that period.

Similarly, the time period from about 1975-1989 was a great time for special effects films, as as this was the time when analog special effects reached their peak, and just before the huge growth in digital effects in the 90's.

screwtype
03-21-2006, 03:52
I also agree that RTW is too big, not in size but micro-management, just too many pieces on the board.

Why the need for all of these "strategic units" anyhow? The game doesn't need diplomats. Once you've made contact with another faction, you should just be able to call up an audience with that faction, like you can do in Civ. Diplomats just clutter up the game.

Most of the functions of these strategic units could probably be abstracted in a similar way. IMO, they add nothing but tedium to the gameplay.

Puzz3D
03-21-2006, 04:02
I'm not trying to be argumentative, but the look and feel of the game was always intended to be based on Kurosawa, and this was stated many times by developers in these forums and elsewhere. Anybody familiar with Kurosawa's films can see this.
Well, I agree that they have always tried to ride the coattails of a successful movie. They just happened to pick a great director in Kurosawa who tried to maintain a considerable amount of realism and historical accuracy in his movies. There is no Kurosawa in the west making movies about medieval or ancient warfare. Instead they have followed directors like Ridley Scott (Gladiator) and Mel Gibson (Braveheart) who are good directors but who are certainly not interested in realism or historical accuracy. Now I suppose we are going to get Ridley Scott (Kingdom of Heaven) again for MTW2.

screwtype
03-21-2006, 04:11
Now we have exploding rocks, stuff moving around at unrealistically fast speeds, arrows that have the velocity of small rockets, men and horses leaping way up into the air, elephants throwing men 50 meters or more, fire arrows that incinerate man and horse in 5 seconds, skirmishers that run nearly as fast as horses, units that have the acceleration characteristics of a school of fish, cantabrian circle that's invulnerable to arrows, cavalry that can circle so fast that an infantry unit can't even rotate in place fast enough to maintain facing and battles that last about as long as a battle does in a movie such as that battle at the beginning of the movie Gladiator.

Yeah, *sigh* I can only agree.

I think what I hate most about the "new" TW though is the battle speed. There is just no longer any sense of engagement there. There's no sense of coming to grips with solid resistance, a physical body, an opposing will. It's more like a game of tag. You just touch the enemy and either he or you is running in the opposite direction. This is supposed to be fun?

How CA could possibly imagine that these tiggy-touch battles are an improvement over the previous games I still just cannot comprehend. And whenever I think about it, it makes me very uneasy about the future of the series.

All the same, I'm hoping that the new Aussie team are going to be bringing a fresh approach to the game. I just have to keep telling myself that this is going to be different from all the substandard Aussie product I've encountered in the past, LOL.

Duke John
03-21-2006, 09:24
There is just no longer any sense of engagement there. There's no sense of coming to grips with solid resistance, a physical body, an opposing will.
While this is partly caused by the fast combat the greater factor IMO is how units are so independent. Play a battle in RTW and once units start to rout on both sides it becomes a chaos that has little to do with the real thing. You will have islands of combat all over the place. The result is that 1/4 of a battle manuevring, 1/4 is a battle between the 2 frontlines, 1/4 is multiple battles between individual units and 1/4 is mopping up. If I look back at the battle I do not remember a battle as I read about them in the books, it is too quick and too fragmented.

Chainrouting seems to be reduced in R:TW and I think it helped avoiding the above. In historical battles or even in movies there were was usually a long hard fought battle that lasted until one side gave way. In R:TW you do not have that.

M:TW2 allows more variety within units so I will experiment with battles composed of just a few huge units. It should result in a less fragmented battleline in which you have the time to zoom in and wait for that moment were the battle is decided. It would restrict the use of tactics but I have long given up to look for a challenge in SP games and I am looking for immersion instead.

TosaInu
03-21-2006, 13:31
They just happened to pick a great director in Kurosawa who tried to maintain a considerable amount of realism and historical accuracy in his movies.

The Nagashino battle in Kagemusha is not realistic.

Puzz3D
03-21-2006, 16:32
The Nagashino battle in Kagemusha is not realistic.
Which just goes to show that you shouldn't use movies as the model for the combat. It's a bad idea. The combat in STW wasn't based on a Kurosawa movie, but the combat in RTW sure looks like it was based on something like the opening battle in Gladiator.

Trajanus
03-24-2006, 06:29
Why the need for all of these "strategic units" anyhow? The game doesn't need diplomats. Once you've made contact with another faction, you should just be able to call up an audience with that faction, like you can do in Civ. Diplomats just clutter up the game.

Most of the functions of these strategic units could probably be abstracted in a similar way. IMO, they add nothing but tedium to the gameplay.


Realism over ease-of-use. They didn't have phones back then (although it would have made things easier ~D) So diplomats had to be sent everytime they wanted to make contact. Although perhaps a better way would be to send a messenger with a message.

"I will be attacking Isle-de-France next spring please support me" etc. Sending automatic messengers that do not clog-up the map would perhaps ease the micro-management.

screwtype
03-24-2006, 09:32
Realism over ease-of-use. They didn't have phones back then (although it would have made things easier ~D) So diplomats had to be sent everytime they wanted to make contact. Although perhaps a better way would be to send a messenger with a message.

"I will be attacking Isle-de-France next spring please support me" etc. Sending automatic messengers that do not clog-up the map would perhaps ease the micro-management.

It's not realism. They didn't have telephones, true, but then it didn't take them five years for a diplomat to march to his next door neighbour and ask if he wants to be an ally.

It's the height of absurdity for a diplomat to take literally years to consult his neighbours. When turns are measured in years, of course you should be able to just "dial up" the opposition and put your offer to them.

Adding further insult to injury is the way in which your diplomat actually has to search for the other faction leader. Apparently, no-one can tell him where the leader is actually hanging out, so he has to go on a "Where's Wally" headhunt. I found it extremely frustrating in MTW trying to just FIND the opposition leader, let alone the tedium involved in marching my diplomats around in the first place.

At the very least it should work the same as in Civ - you can contact a faction leader just by initiating an encounter with any of his units.