CA, Keep the Dates on the Turns!

[Ignoramus]

Let's make CA see, that we won't accepted numbered turns. We want historical dates per turn. I.e. 1080, 1081, 1082, not Turn 1, Turn 2, Turn 3. Vote.

[screwtype]

I don't care whether they have dates or not.

[Kraxis]

I don't care whether they have dates or not.
And here I was about to ask "Who is going to be the first to select yes" with a bit of irony. Well, while there is no 'yes' yet, I see I was quite wrong in my estimate.

[screwtype]

I didn't vote because my preferred choice of "Gah!" wasn't available...

[Keba]

I say years, not labeling things with turn numbers. I suppose I am a bit conservative, having been playing since Shogun, but I am determined I will have years in my games, even if I have to mod them in myself.

[Antiochius]

i have chosen the years, because it is more realistic to know in which year ayou are playing at the moment. Besides the atmosphere will be destroyed by such things

[Orda Khan]

i have chosen the years, because it is more realistic to know in which year ayou are playing at the moment. Besides the atmosphere will be destroyed by such things
Very true I whole heartedly agree.......The result so far speaks for itself

......Orda

[Kraxis]

I say years, not labeling things with turn numbers. I suppose I am a bit conservative, having been playing since Shogun, but I am determined I will have years in my games, even if I have to mod them in myself.
I'm afraid that mgiht be a problem.
If the turns truly do not last 1 year or half a year or something like that, I fear putting in dates will just give you a wrong feeling of history. Meaning that the dates will pop up as 1080-1081-1082 ect. While they should have been 1080-1082-1084 ect.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Atmosphere is everything! Gimme dates!

Civilization doesn't use 'turn number 1 through 400'. They use dates, with intervals ranging from 50 to 1 years., i.e. 3950 B.c. - 3900 B.c. - 3850 B.c.; 1750-1752-1754 and 1921-1922-1923. Works perfectly.

[Keba]

I'm afraid that mgiht be a problem.
If the turns truly do not last 1 year or half a year or something like that, I fear putting in dates will just give you a wrong feeling of history. Meaning that the dates will pop up as 1080-1081-1082 ect. While they should have been 1080-1082-1084 ect.

I posted that hoping that they will actually have at the least 1 turn=1 year, I would like more, of course, I would be ecstatic with 4 turns/year.

IMO, 225 turns is not nearly enough. I am a player who always started in the Early age in MTW, playing all the way through to the Late. With RTW, I played slow as well, in vanilla by 200 BC, I had only captured 3 provinces with the Julii, despite achieving Marian reforms.

I am hoping that they add the idea from Civ 4 ... game pace. I want an epic, long marathon lasting seemingly forever. Others may want a short 225 turn game. It would be nice to offer a choice of pace. They have already done it (that is, offered choices) with RTW, with the Arcade/Realistic battle choices, I'm hoping that they take it a step further.

[TB666]

I voted yes because there wasn't a "don't care" option.
I never bothered with dates and in MTW always started from the early era.
But I'm a slow builder so the thing I'm worried about is the 225 turns.
If you can mod this then I'm fine with it, the same with the date/turn thing.

Edit: ooppss I noticed that I voted wrong.
One less for No and one more for Yes

[Quietus]

i have chosen the years, because it is more realistic to know in which year ayou are playing at the moment. Besides the atmosphere will be destroyed by such things Then, you've ticked the wrong selection since you've answered "Yes". :laugh4:

[Duke John]

I voted yes. I could never be bothered to play 500, 1000 or even more turns. I can not believe why some are suggesting a 4 turn per year system for a 500 year period, it is insane. I want to play a campaign where each turn could be entry in a chronology of my empire. I have enough imaginition to imagine one turn being 5 years or another 5 weeks. If CA could come with a piece of code that adds the town/region, month and year to the title of the current battle it would give me enough anchoring into a timeline.
I would much rather play a campaign with 30 battles that mattered in 200 turns than 1000 turns with 150 battles that were needed to make the player do something. Quality over quantity.

[Kraxis]

Ah, but DJ do you honestly prefer Turn 1 over 1080?

[Prince Cobra]

Who was that 'genius' who decided to use Turns 1 ,Turns 2 , Turns 3???????
Maybe the history of the world starts from 1080??????? :furious3:
I don't even want to think about such a variant.:no:

[hellenes]

I voted yes. I could never be bothered to play 500, 1000 or even more turns. I can not believe why some are suggesting a 4 turn per year system for a 500 year period, it is insane. I want to play a campaign where each turn could be entry in a chronology of my empire. I have enough imaginition to imagine one turn being 5 years or another 5 weeks. If CA could come with a piece of code that adds the town/region, month and year to the title of the current battle it would give me enough anchoring into a timeline.
I would much rather play a campaign with 30 battles that mattered in 200 turns than 1000 turns with 150 battles that were needed to make the player do something. Quality over quantity.

What about 4 starting periods with 4 turns per year each?
Doesnt AUtumn/Winter/Spring/Summer affect gameplay in a huge way? With the harvest affecting ecomony, winter affecting movement or even warfare and rainy Spring/Autumn affecting battles?
I would LOVE 4 turns per year if the game was split in starting periods.

Hellenes

[screwtype]

I have enough imaginition to imagine one turn being 5 years or another 5 weeks. If CA could come with a piece of code that adds the town/region, month and year to the title of the current battle it would give me enough anchoring into a timeline.

Yeah, that's pretty much my point. While I don't know enough about the proposed new system to make a judgement, I can imagine other ways of mapping the chronology than what we have now, and I'm willing to give CA the benefit of the doubt until I see what they actually come up with.

[doc_bean]

I'm for a Civ like numbering system, although the 'adaptive turn' system mentioned by A. Saturnus and a few others could be superior if done right.

[screwtype]

I'm for a Civ like numbering system, although the 'adaptive turn' system mentioned by A. Saturnus and a few others could be superior if done right.

I haven't seen his post. Can you provide a link to it?

[Viking]

A most peculiar move by CA. Most unwanted as well. :inquisitive:

[aw89]

Make that a plus one on no, and minus one on yes. (I pressed the wrong one)

I hope that they atleast make it modable.

[Geoffrey S]

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.

[A.Saturnus]

I haven't seen his post. Can you provide a link to it?

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=61977

I didn't vote because I don't know what a system they are working on. I don't necessarily need a display in the right lower corner telling me that what year it is. The connection with real history gets lost anyway when you conquer Italy with the Russians. What I'm wondering though is how the characters are implemented. Do characters die after a set number of turns? To prevent it from getting unrealistic und un-immersive some form of representation of real time is still needed, even if not shown. I'll wait for CA to pass judgement.

[Geoffrey S]

A.Saturnus, that's pretty much the way I see it too. :2thumbsup:

It'd be the next logical step in the TW series, after RTW added the whole movement points thing. It's a good point you raised about characters ageing and similar matters, but there's no reason as you said that the time couldn't be tracked while the turns keep adding up.

[Servius]

CA is proposing to make MTW2 like 'The History Channel with TIVO'. Basically, CA wants to be able to cover a very long period of history in a very quick amount of time, and they want to still pack in all the big events. So, the game will be like a highlight reel. I say they're TIVOing history because CA is treating the 'boring' parts as TIVO treats commercials, by fast-forwarding through them. Therefore, if they used dates, the major events will appear to happen WAY before their time.

The game starts around 1050 or 1100. Chris Columbus' voyage was in 1492, which would be like 400 turns if 1 turn = 1 year. But in CAs version, CC's voyage will have to occur probably around turn 150 or 175. If there's only 225 turns, there won't be enough time to do anything with the Americas if the voyage occurs much longer after turn 175.

BTW, I voted No. Removing years is just one more abstraction that makes this game less authentic and fun. It makes it more fast-paced, less-intelligent, less-accurate, and less realistic. Rise of Nations here we come.

[Ludens]

I didn't vote because I don't know what a system they are working on. I don't necessarily need a display in the right lower corner telling me that what year it is. The connection with real history gets lost anyway when you conquer Italy with the Russians. What I'm wondering though is how the characters are implemented. Do characters die after a set number of turns? To prevent it from getting unrealistic und un-immersive some form of representation of real time is still needed, even if not shown. I'll wait for CA to pass judgement.
Agreed. I'd like to have clarity about what CA is going to do before I will decide whether I like it.

[Mikeus Caesar]

I definitely want to keep dates. After all, how are you going to compare your game to history without dates? How are you going to brag to your friends about it? Hm? What sounds more impressive, i beat the French in 1324, or i beat the French in turn 58?

I am going with the former. Not mention that having dates gives you a proper scale of things as to what you're doing.

But if CA want to appeal to the uneducated masses of n00b-pwning-AoE-whores then so be it, i won't be buying their game. Unless of course someone makes a mod so that turns are turned into years.

[TB666]

I definitely want to keep dates. After all, how are you going to compare your game to history without dates? How are you going to brag to your friends about it? Hm? What sounds more impressive, i beat the French in 1324, or i beat the French in turn 58?

Well people who are among the ones complaing are also bragging about completing RTW in 30 turns so maybe it isn' such a big deal.

[Patricius]

I do not mind the numbering. It could allow a game to be played without an end date or unhistorical late date. Still I would prefer years. Perhaps a toggle in setting like 'numbered turns=0' could be provided.

[fallen851]

But if CA want to appeal to the uneducated masses of n00b-pwning-AoE-whores then so be it, i won't be buying their game.

Umm, you won't buy the game then because if you did you would be pwned, n00b.

Seriously, though, they should keep the dates. I wish they had used a Roman numeral system for RTW for the dates, that would be so cool, but then people would have trouble... "err I think I conquered Rome in MCXIIVIV, or was it MXCIVIV, crap I have no clue... are those even numbers?".

[Puzz3D]

Those are not valid roman numerals. There is a system to roman numerals, and it's not hard to read.

The problem with putting dates on the turns is that it's going to be obvious that the dates are wrong. Then again the average gamer probably doesn't know when anything happened in history, how long people lived or how far an army or a ship could travel in a given amount of time.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

One turn per year is fine, two per year is fine, four per year is getting silly.

I'd get far too bored with 2,000 turns, 1,000 is all I'd ever want and 500 odd is probably better.

[Mooks]

I accidently pressed yes, I withdraw my vote. I thought yes for the real dates.

Dates only, it would make no sense whatsoever to be in year "112" , that would remind me of rome :total war to much.

[Nelson]

I’m not married to the dates.

I would prefer to start on turn 1080 AD instead of turn 1, true enough. But I wouldn’t like fielding knights in full plate in 1180 AD. That sort of thing is best done on turn 100.

Will gunpowder arrive on a given turn or will we trigger it somehow?

[sapi]

I didn't vote because my preferred choice of "Gah!" wasn't available...
qft - someone add 'gah' or 'candeh' please :laugh4:

[cannon_fodder]

I'm neutral. I mean, I think to myself that dates make more sense, but I don't think I would even notice the difference if I was actually playing the game. Either way, an army marching about 100km is 6 months isn't really any less bogus.

I guess the problem with the turns rather than dates thing is that it is not direct abstraction. Having a character that survives through 100+ years worth of military, social, and technological development isn't consistent with the real world. This is unlike the fairly small armies seen in all Total War games- realism can be preserved even where a simple scale-down is present.

But, if the game only lasts 225 turns, I hope the armies move really, REALLY damn fast, at least compared to those in Rome.

[ByzantineKnight]

We need years, otherwise its like your faction leader has died at the tender age of 45 turns. please give us years, please

[Darth Nihilus]

For me personally I definantly want the turns. I love medieval history and I want some dates to go with my accomplishments, not "turn 115." I have no idea why they would fix somthing thats not broken, whcih brings me to a bigger concern I have.

I completlly agree with the comment that they are trying to Tivo the game with this 225 turns junk. I loved the 2 turns per year that was in Rome. I play pretty slow at times and enjoy taking my time when playing and I don't want to feel rushed. Having them fast forward to the highlight reel of the game is just stupid. The game (or our history in the game) is made in those mundane or "boring" years that CA wants to fast forward.

All in all, I don't like the turns instead of years idea, but it pales in comparison to my problem with the 225 years and the fast forward thing that they're going to impliment.

[JFC]

I agree with the date as the turn. I have seen a pic in 3D Gamers showing Britain on the campaign map covered in snow and not in Gamespot. Doesn't that mean two turns per year as in RTW?

Snow:
http://images.3dgamers.com/screenimages/games/medieval2/thumb_mtw2-pcscreenshots3974mtw2_342.jpg

No Snow:
http://i.i.com.com/cnet.g2/images/2006/193/931592_20060713_thumb005.jpg

Well... Hmmmm! :juggle:

[r johnson]

I much prefer the years in comparison to the "turn 1" etc, i'd also rather have it move one years at a time.

[Silver Rusher]

Something tells me that most of the 17 people who voted 'yes' on the poll misread the question, or clicked the wrong option or something. Antiochus definitely did.

EDIT: By the way, it will still be possible to know which year you are on. Although I don't altogether approve of the turn thing, I think going through turns and then reminding yourself what year it is would work quite well, especially if CA are going to make different turns have different timespans like some have suggested.

[The Wizard]

I have enough imaginition to imagine one turn being 5 years or another 5 weeks. If CA could come with a piece of code that adds the town/region, month and year to the title of the current battle it would give me enough anchoring into a timeline.

I don't see how "using your imagination" can be a viable alternative seeing as a turn will mean something different for each unit type on the map. How's that going to work? Am I to spend more time "imagining" stuff than getting down to the skinny?

[iraklaras]

i dont like the turn i prefer the years

[Kralizec]

I guess the problem with the turns rather than dates thing is that it is not direct abstraction. Having a character that survives through 100+ years worth of military, social, and technological development isn't consistent with the real world. This is unlike the fairly small armies seen in all Total War games- realism can be preserved even where a simple scale-down is present.

That's my beef, too. 1 turn effectively equals 2 years (at least on average)
And if I recall correctly, CA stated that characters age 1 year per 2 turns.
Therefore haracters live therefore live through 4 times as much historical events as they should because they age to slowly.
Inherent to that, if you play from begin to end you have 4 times as less generations of kings as you'd expect.
I know, it's just an abstraction. A pretty bad abstraction. One I can't block out of my mind with my "imagination".

I agree with Duke_John that 225 turns/seasons/whatever is plenty and I would like a system like what A.Saturnus described, but only if characters age synchronised with the rest of the game- that is, characters only live about 30-35 turns max.
But CA has pretty much stated that they want the player to rush through historical events, while still letting the characters live a long time to "breed affection to them".

I really wish that CA just put Era's in again, and have the option of having the game end at the end of your starting era (or not, if you want a long campaign)

[Tamur]

Also withholding judgement until there's the end result to judge. People are extremely quick to cry out against perceived oppression around here.

[Duke John]

Something tells me that most of the 17 people who voted 'yes' on the poll misread the question, or clicked the wrong option or something.
I voted yes because if this is the system given then I would rather like turns then years. I am more interested in the late medieval period, but if we would have 2 turns per year as with R:TW than I would need to play 600-700 turns before getting my culverins and men-at-arms in full plate (if advancement is based on time and not just clicking through the techtree).

So 225 turns suits me fine. Too much history has been cramped into those and CA should have used eras, but alas that is the game they are designing and turns is IMO the best solution for that design.

[Puzz3D]

I really wish that CA just put Era's in again, and have the option of having the game end at the end of your starting era (or not, if you want a long campaign)
Creative Assembly stated that they weren't including eras because it was more work to make multiple campaigns.

[The Wizard]

I'd almost get the impression that this is CA's solution to the fact that in RTW the game was usually over before the 100th turn. What that means is that they're not going to try and improve gameplay to alleviate that problem (EB has four turns yet most games last until well into the 1st century BC) but opts for a trick, a "hack" almost. Great, isn't it? ~:rolleyes:


So 225 turns suits me fine. Too much history has been cramped into those and CA should have used eras, but alas that is the game they are designing and turns is IMO the best solution for that design.

The solution would have indeed been to put some work into the darned game, huh? To not have it suddenly been "too much work" to put in eras again for a designer that had done that quite handily in the singleplayer mode of MTW. It's really quite sad to see that it's suddenly too much work to make a quality product.

[GeneralMikeIII]

Hmm...a kinda difficult choice. I think I like years better, though. I definitely like being able to say I had whatever at this date etc. (like in cIV when I had gunpowder before christianity was founded; that is how I knew it was time to bump up the difficulty), and I kinda buy the "the years adds to the authentic feeling of the game" argument.

I think a large part of the problem comes from trying to get two different views from one system, or I guess three views from two systems. cIV is awful in this respect. I like my tactical battles, but I also want to control the grand strategy and empire building. In cIV, you needed a very good imagination to "see" any kind of tactical battles. MTW, on the other hand, is by far the best game I have seen in this respect (haven't played the other two TW's however), but there is still a few bugs to work out. Having a strategy map that is completely independent (time-wise, anyway) from the battles is excellent (IDK if the TW series was the first to do this, but as I said the way they do it is quite good), and in MTW the strategy is turn-based and the battles are real time (that was one thing I didn't like about SW:Empire at War, both were real time, and the flow wasn't very good, dido for Lords of the Realm).

I propose a third breakdown. Keep a grand-strategy-map-empire-building-troop-training-building-construction thingy that is turn based. Also keep the completely independent RT battles. Add in something like mini-turns for troop and agent movement. Something like 1 turn for grand-strategy...thingy=1 year=maybe 4 mini-turns for troop movement (depending mainly on how many territories are in the game/how big the territories are). This way you get extra turns for the things that you need it for, and you can add in changes for seasons and stuff and it seems more realistic (it takes 4 years for an army to march from London to Scotland? And every war can take up to 10 years or more? Give me a break), but you avoid having 2000 actual full turns, which does seem ridiculous and would be hard to keep the average (or even rather-more-committed-than-average) player interested.

:shame: IDK maybe it is a stupid idea; it definitely isn't perfect and will need some adjusting and tweaking, but I really think it would be a step in the right direction.