Pre-battle scouting

[Michael the Great]

Hey,anybody know something about the pre-battle scouting system?

[Stormer]

hmm i cant see thing being used for MP but i think its must be like before u can see the AI before you begin or something

maybe it colud be like battleships http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif you have 3 click and you see a certain area well who knows try to make it into something your looking forward too http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[Alrowan]

im still wondering how they do this..

[Knight_Yellow]

i reckon itl be a brief rundown of enemy forces like...

"sire the enemy army consists of mailny armoured knights with a few hvy calv", or "sire the enemy army has no calvarly" etc.

[Jacque Schtrapp]

I think ol' Yeller has it right. It probably gives us the opportunity to examine the composition of the Ai's forces. This would help immensely in deciding which troops to include in your starting line-up, especially if we are talking thousands involved on each side.

[solypsist]

seeing what the enemy army contains is what border forts are for.
as for using them in battlefield mode, I don't see how it would prove useful since the AI could just change their line-up of starting men and reinforcements any time, thus making your info faulty.

[Hosakawa Tito]

Yeah, if my scout is as accurate as my weather forecaster he'll find himself digging latrines for the rest of the campaign. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif

[Michael the Great]

Quote[/b] (Hosakawa Tito @ Jan. 10 2003,14:31)]Yeah, if my scout is as accurate as my weather forecaster he'll find himself digging latrines for the rest of the campaign. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif
Hellow HT that Khazar story was real nice,I like the turkish now too,coz they have so diverse units(and many uniques).

[sassbarman]

What I hope is happening here is that the border towers will no longer tell you exactly what a particular army is composed of, rather just alert you to they're presence. You would then have to scout with some scout unit perhaps to determine exactly what units comprise an army in an adjacent province. I never liked the all seeing border tower anyways its just a little too unrealistic.

[solypsist]

huh? i can tell if there's an army nearby just by looking at the strat map. if i see a big red banner, then it's an army.
armies are not easy to conceal, so it's not difficult to know if there's one camped across your borders.

it still seems, to me (my opinion), that scouting forces for a game that involves set-piece battles is a bit over complicating.

[Hosakawa Tito]

Quote[/b] (Michael the Great @ Jan. 10 2003,14:43)]
Quote[/b] (Hosakawa Tito @ Jan. 10 2003,14:31)]Yeah, if my scout is as accurate as my weather forecaster he'll find himself digging latrines for the rest of the campaign. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif
Hellow HT that Khazar story was real nice,I like the turkish now too,coz they have so diverse units(and many uniques).
Hi Michael the Great. Glad you enjoyed the story. The Turks do have a lot of interesting specialized units that are fun to use. I can't wait to get to use the Janissary Heavy Infantry, you have to really tech up to reach them though.

I'm kind of curious about how effective this scout thing will really be. I just use special agents to scout beyond the reach of my borderforts, so I don't see any real advantage to scouts. What will they do that can't be done by the special agents?

[Husar]

Perhaps they tell you where the enemy army is and then you can choose where you want to fight, for example "fight on a free battlefield", "hide in the woods" or "get them at the bridge".

[Tmscience]

that would be interesting, but unlikely. If it was me I would always pick the bridge maps lol http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif

[sassbarman]

solypsist all i,m saying is that some hastily erected tower or towers that can see everything in a province that could be thousands of square miles in size is in my opinion just a little silly, again just my opinion. I agree that a large army may be difficult to conseal as to its general whereabouts, but to know its exact composition down to each individual units valour and if its general likes young boys and sleeps with his horse, all from sitting in some glorified treefort, just doesn't add up for me. Lets just say I personally would welcome any attempt to introduce some advance scouting if only to add to the tactical depth of the game.[I][B]

[SmokWawelski]

If they do some type of pre-battle mission with real scouting units and take down the scouting capabilities from the towers, then it is going to slow down the game a lot. You would jump into the 3D mode, scout the battlefield with some cav units, go back to align your forces and fire up the 3D again.

If they do it in other manner, it is, as you guys pointed out, repeating the same stuff that the border forts and towers do now…

Sounds interesting though, just to see how they will do that.

[Vertigo10]

In all honesty, it wouldn't surprise me if they just showed the enemy units as if they had been deployed, so you know where they start and can adjust your angle to theirs. This is what really pisses me off on defense, because sometimes I stretch the line so long, and they start right next to my line (since I don't know where they are). This, of course, is followed by the routing of the end of that line, causing panic everywhere. I'm really not sure though; that's a really vague feature.

-Vert

[Spino]

I think Vertigo hit it on the nose. I think the Pre-Battle Scouting will be nothing more than deciding whether the attacker or the defender gets the opportunity to make some final adjustments on the battlefield based on limited and/or extensive information as to the enemy's whereabouts. Whether the attacker or defender gets this luxury might be affected by factors such as the number of friendly Spies and other agents in the territory, the presence of Towers, and maybe the Command and or certain V/V ratings of your highest ranking general.

[SmokWawelski]

I agree with Vertigo. Currently the game is biased toward the defence, as you always pick the ground. Not very realistic, as you cannot hope to surprise your enemy right of the start. Should be possible, as we know that great leaders were able to surprise attack their enemies, just like Hannibal taking the route through the Alps...

Attacker should be able to make some final adjustments if he/she has the foreguard deployed, as now a lot of people (including myself) simply lead AI into traps by making it attack first.

Hope this is this whole scauting thing.

[muffinman14]

yup and its way too easy to do that http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[Michael the Great]

But how will I bea able to concealmy troops then?
Oh really,ambushes are much underpowered in this game.

[Lord Krazy]

Pre Battle scouting it's like
Pre sales Hype http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

LK http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/dizzy.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif

[Big King Sanctaphrax]

Maybe you could assign a number of units to scouting duties; these would turn up after a set time as re-inforcements. The more units you assign as scouts, the more info you get-from a cursory breakdown of his units to his starting positions if you deployed a lot of scouts.

[Efrem Da King]

Could a dev please explain what this is? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif

[Dr_Who]

Here is an idea:
What if scouts enabled an option where you could attack the oponents army marching toward your province? If you had a scout you could do a pre-empetive strike while the oponents army was still in marching formation Now that would be a slaughter http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smokin.gif

[PSYCHO]

You can see how CA is developing the Total War series through the different games.
I believe the pre-battle scouting is part of the new RTW game. Because there will be no provinces, border forts will become more realistic. There will probably still be a 'fog of war' as we now have in the total war series, so the forts will pick up the existence of an army near your border. The "Oh look banners in the distance" realistic kind of reporting. The pre-battle "I saw *** cavalry" scouting will give you a clearer idea of the composition.

If this is true, I'm loving the direction CA is heading with this Series.
I just hope they keep and build on the innovative features employed so far (eg. Throne rooms)


Cheers

[muffinman14]

I miss the good ole' throne rooms that we used to have...

BTW, if RTW did come with a throne room, wouldnt it be cool to chop off a diplomats head like in STW but unlike STW we could do it ourselves http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cool.gif

[Foreign Devil]

Quote[/b] (Efrem Da King @ Jan. 19 2003,02:37)]Could a dev please explain what this is? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif
All you did was restate the topic.... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif

[Efrem Da King]

Because it was on the second page and a dev still hadn't told us. It s all well and good guessing, but I wanna know what it actoully is http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cool.gif . BTW its for VI.