Years or Seasons?

[Macedon]

I like the season turns.It gives me chance to plan an attack(like attacking a mostly missile army in spring).
Or maybe there should be a possibility to choose: season OR year.

[Leet Eriksson]

Remember if there is an option to choose between years and seasons,unit training and building construction time may vary.for example it would take one year to train a particular unit,but in season mode,thats 4 seasons.So i think they either put a year or season and not an option to choose between them,and imo i think seasons is better becuase the game ends in 14 AD wich is a very short time considering you start somewhere between 300-200 BC.

[TosaInu]

Konnichiwa,

So the third option leaves it as choice to the player? I fancy that, it may even 'pay' to have the more choices: months or even weeks.

This would undoubtly make it hard/too resource consuming for CA to balance the game. It's definately something that should be moddable: allow the game to be changed and make it easy for users to do so, but focus on a balance for whatever is most fancied or can be made 'right' (be it seasons, years or both).

Since RTW is going to be a game both on 'world' and 'province' level, with units protecting important rivercrossings passes and such, I'ld feel out of sync if it takes one year to position a unit at a pass 10 miles further away, while the enemy can travel 600 miles in the same turn. MTW does show that out of sync problem too and it's, imho, more obvious than in STW.

Another reason is atmosphere and feeling part of the game: I don't like to, even fail to, identify with a king that will die each 30 turns. Seasonal events like a harvest time, also add to the atmosphere.

Seasons also allow more strategic depth: which round to attack, which season buy what?

Another interesting idea would be to add a kind of pseudo realtime to the strategic map which can be accelerated (Ceasar2). A 'practical' example: issue the order to a legion to march from point A on the map to point B. The legion would then continiously march to point B scaled to the gamespeed set by the gamer but in proportion to reality (I hope that it can be understood what I try to explain).

Since the strategic part should allow extra thinking time, a pause button is required. Visible realtime movements of enemy units could spoil realism feeling, and there will undoubtly be more issues.

I personally vote for seasons, but I can see that others would like years. So I vote option C.

[frogbeastegg]

Seasons. I liked being able to choose what weather to fight in (to a certain extent). Seasons also gave much more variety in weather; you didn't have to fight 4 battles to get snow. Plus it's much more tactical since you can choose beneficial weather e.g. winter snow Vs a large cavalry army, spring rains Vs gunpowder armies etc.

If they could successfully pull off option C that would be great, everybody would be happy.

[TosaInu]

Valid concern faisal. The trick would basically be to express construction/training time not in turns, but months.

Then ceil the value to the nearest value played by the gamer or have an internal month clock and release the building/unit when both the construction months are passed and a new turn starts.

Example:
legion 2 months.

When playing in month mode -> 2 turns.
When playing in season mode -> 3 months passed so next turn.
When playing in year mode -> 12 months passed so released in turn after training was initiated.

Small fort 8 months.
When playing in month mode -> 8 turns.
When playing in season mode -> 9 months passed in 3 turns.
When playing in year mode -> 12 months passed so released in turn after construction was initiated.

[Shahed]

I would prefer neither option.

I would prefer the campaign map/game to be continous, with a speed slider. The same as is present in the tactical battles. The whole idea of a continous map being breathrough, in that case it should really be continous. It should out an end to turn based campaign mode. YOu can slow the game down when necessary, and speed it up when there is nothing important happening. In this way you can see the movement of your armies across the map. With spies in enemy regions you can see the direction enemy armies are taking. This is far more interesting for me than turn based mode.

Naturally this means that there are seasons, just that they come and go continuously without having to click the "next" button.

Same idea as Tosa's basically.

[TosaInu]

Konnichiwa SeljukSinan san,

Yes, we seem to think the same.


I wouldn't like to have it like AoE or other RTS games, as I like the seperation between the strategic game and battles.

A pausebutton, so you can think things over, while still arranging moves/purchases, is a must.

The elapsing of time are/should be different on the strategic map and the actual battlemap.

A season could elaps within 30 minutes (usersetting and pausebutton) in the stratmap, but a battle requires more like a 1:1 scale (1 hour battle is 1 hour play). Meaning that the campmap timer should automatically be paused when a battle is resolved (a gamer won't appreciate that the entire stratmap is changed after 2 hours of resolving a battle).

Same would apply if there are diplomatic negotiations aka f.e. Sid Meiers Civilisation/Alpha Centauri.

Things like this were done in Ceasar2 (Sierra?).

[Shahed]

Konbanwa

Oh Yes defintely if you enter battle mode then the time scale should come down to a slower level. A time slider on the campaign map and a time slider in battle as we have it now is what I would like. Whether the camp map pauses while in battle mode or not I dont't mind. I guess for playability's sake, it should pause. Hmm come to think of ti, I would actually prefer if the campaign map does not pause but runs at the same speed as the battle map while you are in battle. In this way you cannot take part in more than one battle, and your AI generals will be allowed to make a mess of things. Joking....it would make AI generals more important. It would also mean a WHOLE lot of work, which CA is probably not willing to invest in because it is too expensive. Then you could have the option to command all battles or allow AI generals to perform the some or all battles, while you role play the emperor and thus only one general. Naturally you could watch the AI battles later in replays, after action reports from your AI general ...he walks up and presents his report and after that you go and watch the replay to see what he achieved..maybe grant him some land, a promotion, a title... and such.

I guess the current auto-resolve feature is a first step towards such options.

Anyway the options are quite many. How many of them can be achieved is simply a function of CA's true caliber.

[Shahed]

I can almost feel the suspense building as a Roman army moves across the map, and an enemy army moves into it's path. Can you picture it on the campaign map ? I can quite vividly. The Romans are not yet at war and once the armies meet, a negociation can begin or outright hostilities. Perhaps the enemy would settle form some gold, wine and grain to allow the army safe passge through their land, on the way to Persia.

[hrvojej]

Quote[/b] (SeljukSinan @ July 13 2003,11:12)]I would prefer the campaign map/game to be continous, with a speed slider.
And we're getting closer and closer to uniting TW with EU. EU engine does exactly that, Paradox calls it "pseudo real time", where you have a huge world map with scalable speed, and the gametime flows in days. It also lasts for nearly 400 years, has seasonal effects, monthly events, yearly evewnts, etc. It seems that the wishes for the merging of the concepts of two engines occurs on so many levels, that at some point in future it is bound to happen.

[Cobra]

I'm all for season. More turns, longer and deeper games.

[Rosacrux]

Seasons. Definitely. Giving us the option to change this would be a blast, but as this might require quite some work, I'd be satisfied with 4-turns a year. A tw-turns-a-year model would be also much better than the yearly turns.

[Nowake]

Seasons please ... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[Yas Terazawa]

voted to Seasons.. just because to see more battles in winter with snowfalls..

[Basileus]

Year btu when you end turn and have a battle a random factor who would chose a season which the battle accourd that year...well soemthing like that would be nice i think if we cant get seasons

[Shahed]

Did you guys actually read the whole thread ?. I would recommend you do, as there is a suggestion in this thread which surpasses the poll options:-

A continous game, without turns. You speed up and slow the game down to what you wish. Naturally this will include days, weeks, seasons, years. When the battle starts it will start at the time and season where the armies meet on this continous map.

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

[Saki]

I voted for seasons.It would be nice to get option 3 and even nicer for continous scalable time but I dont think we can expect the latter two.

When mtw was being developed CA said they would be using years instead of seasons.This caused quite a stir and alot of peeps thought it was a bad idea then.If I remember correctly CA said seasons made MTW to long and draged out.
I personalyy want extremly long and dragged out games.

The first MTW mod I looked for was one which changed the start or end date to allow me to play more turns.

The other issue which was present in MTW concerning the tims scale was that it took 4 or 5 years to march from wessex to scotland(You could prolly march it in a month).I do not know how movment will be implemented in RTW but I hope you get more miles per year than you did in mtw.

[Spino]

Seasonal turns would be great, especially when you consider the pseudo 'realtime' nature of army movement on the strategic map. However with a 300 BC - 14 AD time frame we are talking about the possibility that the grand campaign game could take 1,200+ turns to complete Now I know why CA opted for semi-annual turns

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif

[RisingSun]

Somebody else already beat me to it, I was also gonna suggest the EU2/Hearts of Iron time engine, but it won't be implemented this late in development. Maybe next time. *crosses fingers*

[scsscsfanfan]

I personally like long games, so 1200 turns sounds good.
One thing I'm not sure is that how the movement is handled in the game. Since the strat map is made up of thousands of battle mapps of 9x9km sqaures, then dose it mean that there will be a particular movement allowence for each army/unit for them to be able to march a certain distance every turn/ season/ year? would terran be considered in this situation?

I hope it can be in real time scale as others pointed out earlier, then it opens more strat/tact options in the game.
But it would be too late for now http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif

[FesterShinetop]

Definately seasons

I hope they also add in stages of buildings being build. Like if it takes one year to complete a building you can see it's halfway finished after half a year...

[Nowake]

Quote[/b] (SeljukSinan @ July 14 2003,18:58)]Did you guys actually read the whole thread ?. I would recommend you do, as there is a suggestion in this thread which surpasses the poll options:-

A continous game, without turns. You speed up and slow the game down to what you wish. Naturally this will include days, weeks, seasons, years. When the battle starts it will start at the time and season where the armies meet on this continous map.

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif
A very good ideea, but it has 0% chance of being acomplished.

[Shahed]

Yes I agree. Great ideas need great effort sometimes.
Ahh well who cares, many other games already have done it.

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

[Belisarius]

More seasons to the people

Though I doubt CA will implement it, they will most likely stick with years http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif

[Sainika]

Seasons
Please

[TosaInu]

Konnichiwa,

1200 turn games. It's true that this will scare off some gamers. There also seem to be gamers who just get more excited to play.

Again, option is the key here. The game could be divided in 3 eras like MTW. That leaves 100 years and 400 turns for each era. A gamer who prefers a short game plays one era, when the era is over a score or something is displayed, but also leaves the option to continue.

I've played quite a few STW campaigns, and even completed a few. Might be my style of playing, but there aren't really 400 turns to complete in 100 years. There are interesting stages in the game where each turn costs me 30 minutes (excluding the battles) to think about the best strategy and make arrangements. There are quick turns of 5 minutes and there are 'boring' stages where I just hit next turn (up to 10 turns in 30 seconds).

1200(+) turns and a long game will just be an option.

[DthB4Dishonor]

Very nice ideas Sinan and Tosa. You guys got me thinking. If it moves a psuedo-realtime then you could set different Marching speeds for your army. At certain Marching speeds army will need different lengths of rest time to be up to full stamina. I.E. I just hard marched 4 legions over the Alps into italian gaul from southern italy. They are very tired and might require 2 weeks or more time of camp (no building structures or seige engines) to be able to start a battle with 4 bars. If you attack an army right after it finished marching then you might fight an enemy that starts at 3 or 2 stamina bars and they cant get above that.

Its crazy just thinking of the possiblities of strategy using this kind of pseudo-realtime. It might even make a mp campaign possible since it will limit time people use for turns. You wont have to wait 30min for a guy to hit next year.

However there is %0 chance they will implement that in RTW and I would be content with a seasonal turn based system for now.

[TosaInu]

Hello DthB4Dishonor,

Yes, it would add a lot to the strategic campaign, the things you mention are a splendid example.

It may indeed also open up some possibilities for a MPC, but undoubtly add problems that need to be solved too (think about the difference in timescale between the strategic and the tactic map- it's not that nice if 3 strategic years have passed after a 20 minute battle).

I guess that it would allow some more room for an acceptable compromise if players are prepared to (optionally and in the 'worst' case) leave some decisions to AI generals/governors (can't fight every battle yourself, instruct governors about what to build/train- in fact there's already a queue).

There's of course also the option to play one faction with part of/entire clan or a group of people: some focus mainly on the strategy others more on battles.


Quote[/b] ]mp campaign possible since it will limit time people use for turns

Anything is 'possible', but there won't be discrete turns anymore. This is of course also a possibility:

have a year realtime (session of say 1 hour) and then quit accepting/processing strategic to allow people to finish battles. Thus a player who engages in a big tactic battle (lasting 2 hours) at the beginning of a year won't lose more than 1 year of full control over the strategic part.

[DthB4Dishonor]

Upon further contemplation, It would make the game almost imeasurably more strategic. An (Army can only travel as far as its slowest unit). You can have Cavalry scout ahead and avoid full out engagements till infantry and later artilery catch up.

Also you can have entire cavalry armies that can harrass enemy armies which are marching towards your country. This can delay enemy armies progress enought for you to consolidate your armies for defence and/or conscript new armies.

i.e.
-Carthaginians have 10k heavy infantry coming over alps.
-I have 5k troops in italy and 20k troops outside italy.
-I take my 900 cavalry (horse archers and light cav) and fight a series of non-definitive battles. Cav run out of ammo, I withdraw army.
-Gives me enough time to bring back my armies by sea and land to northern tip of italy to warmly greet Carthaginians.

Also you can perhaps disrupt logistic lines. Also prescribe rations to differing levels. These levels would therefore contribute to troop loyalty, morale and generals vice&virtues.

Well I have a ton more ideas but wont waste everyones time by mentioning more.

RTKPaul

[hrvojej]

Many of these things you can find in EU engine, and it works like charm. Of course, it's a bit more abstract than you would imagine a TW game could have, but it was always my big wish to get the strategic part of the two series closer together. Real-time stratmap with gametime flowing in days, with different unit speeds, fatigue, attrition, continuous coverage with tactical maps that would vary upon the place of engagement, with all the different units, agents, seasonal effects, times of day, diplomacy, events, tracking of each man individually.... I cannot think of anything better to wish for in a computer game. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[Lehesu]

Would this not make for a hefty game, in terms of comp space usage? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif

[hrvojej]

Quote[/b] (Lehesu @ July 17 2003,23:09)]Would this not make for a hefty game, in terms of comp space usage? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif
For my Athlon 800, most certainly. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif
However, in a few years, and if the circumstances go into that direction, who knows. Already you have these things existing to some extent separately in two games. RTW, judging by the announced features, will have alot of these implemented already. Who can tell what the TW 5 will look like? It just might be the dreams come true (mine, at least)... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[Kraellin]

*sniffs the air*

ah, i do believe i smell a discussion about a multiplayer campaign...and no one invited me?

keep working on it, guys; you're getting there http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

K.

[Shahed]

Sticky the CMP thread in ET, so we dont have to keep bringing it up here and there. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/pat.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif

[Kongamato]

Maybe we can get the MPC and see a private demo of RTW if we make a big "MPC 4 RTW" crop circle.

[lonewolf371]

1,200 turns=120,000 peasants to send at enemy at end of game http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

The EU engine might be nice, but you would get blasted with all sorts of battles at one time if you decided to declare war, a solid time would also make when to make battle prompts a little more difficult, but overall it's great. That would turn the entire game into an RTS and give us a feel for realism.

[A.Saturnus]

I voted for seasons, but Sinan`s idea (which I already posted a few months ago) is great.

[Nowake]

And as I said, I don't think that we are taken too seriously http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/pissed.gif

[Macedon]

Ahmmm...it seems the "season" option is winning...78% manMaybe this poll is the reason for the delay to 2004 http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif
Nice idea about the persistent time/world,but I think it will change the game from the bottom.Alone,it's a great improvement of realism in games(anyone have Operation Flaspoint?),but for TW?It's simply not the same.

[Kongamato]

I would have enjoyed some more pronounced seasons. What was the difference in MTW between Autumn and Spring? Rain rate? Was there ANY fatigue changes?

Also, there wasnt any fall foliage, which would have made some nice screenshots.

[A.Saturnus]

1200 turns aren`t too much. I`m playing Civ: Call to Powers lately, how many turns does it have? Surely around 1000. For those who like shorter campaigns there could be the option to play only a certain era.

[Red Peasant]

Yeah, Seasons...two of them: campaigning season and non-campaigning season. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif You *can* campaign in the off-season but possibly suffer penalties because of economic, harvesting, lack of foraging, manpower, weather factors etc. Also, depends where in the world you are. Then just throw in some appropriate weather conditions.

The continuous *option* sounds best to me though, as posited by Tosa and Sinan.

[Red Peasant]

Also, there were political factors to the two season model, the whole political scene in Rome, e.g. elections, political manoeuvring, inducting magistrates, levying legions etc, evolved around this annual dichotomy. One example that highlights this is that Caesar would put his troops into winter quarters during the non-campaign season (and nearly got caught out once or twice by doing so...though Varus was not so lucky a few decades later) in order to return to his province of Cisalpine Gaul in northern Italy specifically so he could influence events in Rome.

[Brighdaasa]

dunno if it's been mentionned here already (haven't read all posts thoroughly), but on the .com forums, MikeB has revealed that as it stands now, there will be 2 turns in a year, summer and winter. Ill try and relocate the thread.

Hmm, i can't find it again, i'm pretty sure a CA member said that on the .com forums, but since i can't find it again i'm starting to doubt myself a bit http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif

[Teutonic Knight]

I'm all for seasons, but do we really have any reason to believe that a CA employee is even reading this post, and even if they are, do they have any plans of actually implementing the contents therof?

[Red Peasant]

Well, I think the CA people have responded quite adequately to the threads in this forum...they do have a presence and they have shown that they take in what's being said as evidenced by their many responses. If the two season model is being adopted as someone [Brighdaasa] suggested, then I for one can see the logic behind it. It is unlikely to be perfect, but then again what is in a PC game, and they can't satisfy everyone or sate their every desire in the quest for so-called *realism*. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif


addendum....IMHO, the 2 seasons structure they propose implementing seems more *realistic* than 4 seasons [though not as good as the *continuous model* ]

[Sjakihata]

I vote for seasons.

What bugs me most are 2 issues about years:

1) No opportunity to plan an attack carefully

2) It takes ONE year for a unit of 40 CAVALRY to go ONE province (especially in the VI map). One should think that 40 cavalry could travel fast, they have horses and are few which eases they travel.

So, by all means include seasons also it allows for longer play http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smokin.gif

[Teutonic Knight]

Here is an early screenshot that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that CA had planned to use the seasons model for M:TW but backed out of it for some reason (i.e. time restraints)

***
look in the lower right hand corner where it says "summer 1093"
***

http://www.totalwar.org/medieval/images/strat2.jpg


***
and again
***

http://www.totalwar.org/medieval/images/strat1.jpg

[ToranagaSama]

Well, my preference is for both. Choices, choices, choices...I'm American afterall. Unfortunately, my vote isn't reflected in the poll, as I made the error of thinking that "Null" meant that I could view the poll and vote afterward. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif

---

Thanks Tosa and everyone else, I am enjoying the intelligent posts in this thread. I too believe that a persistent "world" is the key concept, but specifically to a Multiplay Campaign, which would allow for players to enter and leave a game at will while the "Campaign" would continue. MPCs would exist not on a Central Server, but on Individual servers, ala Half-Life.

This would solve the problem of personal "time commitment" to actually finish a campaign. Finishing wouldn't be at all necessary. A Multiplay Campaign would be exist ndependent of the actual players.

Sssmmmaaaack......OH....we're talking about Seasons and Years....Sorry.

What is it that EminEm says: "...Snap BAck To REality...".

Nice thread.

[Herodotus]

Seasons. I also think it is rediculous that it takes years to go anywhere.

[Nowake]

I said it and I'll say it again: seasons are crucial. How much will an army be permited to move? Caesar arrived in Rome after crossing the Rubicon in much less than three months, still I can't imagine an army in MTW reaching to Sicily in one turn of 12 months. So something is very wrong, and we all agree, except for CA.

[Shahed]

It does not have to be seasons. It can be real time, with a speed slider. the game just runs, No MORE END SEASON END YEAR, boardgame type button. This is a compter game, it can be continous. Just attack when you feel the time is right, day, night, dawn, winter, autumn etc..

Related Topic at TWC (http://www.legiontotalwar.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=269)

Here is an excerpt:

--------------------------
"August 17th.(12:10) I'm reading the turkish gaming brochure Chip"Game"--Special Version, page 30-31--Rome Total War.

I am translating the exact paragraph:

" At Rome Total War, we are given the chance to develop our strategies in a gigantic, REAL-TİME....map. We can use every bridge and every mountain pass to our advantage and benefit.By the way, you did not hear it wrong, Rome:Total War, unlike the first games, is set on a completely real time gameplay...."

-------------------------------

This is the way I want to see RTW. And please before you start off that this is an "unheard" magazine, consider that the REAL TIME option is the one with the MOST flexibility.

Also does anyone know the "official" word on this ?

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

[Nowake]

I don't have the official word, but I agree with you Sinan, as I said it on numerous ocasions. But thinking that the posibility is too small, I militate at least for seasons http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/pat.gif

[Shahed]

Well according to that Turkish magazine, it's already done, and it is Real Time.

[Nowake]

Quote[/b] (SeljukSinan @ Aug. 18 2003,12:03)]Well according to that Turkish magazine, it's already done, and it is Real Time.
awesome news. I'm sorry for being so missinformed. I must catch up with the news http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[Shahed]

Hehe ...well Pr you can just read up a couple of posts http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[A.Saturnus]

Quote[/b] ]Well according to that Turkish magazine, it's already done, and it is Real Time.

Can anyone from CA please confirm this?? Please say it`s true, PLEASE http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[Australianus]

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif What about the option of sneaky night or pre-dawn attacks. At least be able to deploy before first light. Probably need to create some scout units to be able to do it. Any thoughts?

[Nowake]

This will be possible. Even the attacks at first light. Read it in a preview not long ago.

[Monk]

dunno if anybody rememebrs this:


Quote[/b] ] No, it's not a 'full' RTS - it's much much more... Rest assured, the campaign map is still turnbased.

.com FAQ

may be old but thats what they said. although CA might have change the map (dunno why) so it could be a full rts.

[DrHaphazard]

I'm pretty sure we heard somewhere along the lines that its turn based and "seasonal" meaning that you have a winter and summer turn. Looking at The Pics (http://kgfs.org.uk/rtwpics.htm) I guess its possible that its an RTS, but it seems to me that you click on the Hour Glass to change season, and that the sun indicates that its Summer.

It is however left ambiguous, theres no obvious End Year button. The sun might also be simply showing thats its daytime and it changes to night. I dunno though, because we've been told night fights are possible but only when sieging a city.

From the Org FAQ questions...

Quote[/b] ]9)We have had hints from MikeB that night battles are possible, and yet the turns seem still to be yearly things. So if we can pick what time of day we want to attack, will we also be able to pick the season?

A) Night battles will be possible, for example when attacking a city or sallying forth to beat up besiegers. you might also want to attack at dawn in the traditional fashion

So i think its pretty clear its going to be turn based.

How would RTS work though exactly? Because if your fiddlin around with how your cities are being governed you aren't payin attention to your legions or the enemy. Also RTS would require the computer to be thinking about all its factions at once, doesn't seem hardly fair for the computer.

[A.Saturnus]

I guess you are right DrHaphazard. This sun symbol could really indicate summer. So we can still hope for seasonal turns.
To bad it won`t be RTS. Calculating all factions at once might pose a problem, but it has been done in other games as well. The time would go slowly, so you could always control your provinces and your armies. If you get confused, you could simply pause and give your orders while time is stopped.

[Sir Robin]

The faq says the campaign is turn-based and the battles are real-time.

The strat vid seems to indicate turn based campaign as well. When the blue-roman army is selected it has a max move box highlight around it.

[Shahed]

Hmm yes. Could well still be turn based. Wait and watch I suppose. Sounded too good to be true. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif

From .com FAQ:


Quote[/b] ]Q. So is this a full on RTS. Is there still a turn based campaign map? Has it really evolved much from Medieval: Total War?

A. No, it's not a 'full' RTS - it's much much more... Rest assured, the campaign map is still turnbased. Also on the battlefield you can now pause the game, give orders, even queue them - all orders are now queue-able, not just movement ones - and then unpause and let it roll. There are no provinces in RTW. Unit "characters" are 3D animated on the Campaign map. Income and Revenue/Resources are generated via controlling the Cities. Cities can be assigned AI "Governors", city governors can be positioned in any of your settlements, and - if you wish - govern it in your stead, according to your own priorities. . We've now got full-scale cities with troops fighting in the streets, huge siege towers and ladders releasing troops to storm the battlements in the face of defenders trying to repel them, battering rams smashing through city gates, spectacular fire and explosions, and much, much more

Now the key things is this:


Quote[/b] ]No, it's not a 'full' RTS - it's much much more... Rest assured, the campaign map is still turnbased. Also on the battlefield you can now pause the game, give orders, even queue them - all orders are now queue-able, not just movement ones - and then unpause and let it roll.

So it sounds like it is turn based AND there is an element of RTS as well. i.e when you give orders the unit moves to execute immediately. then you click end turn (or some tomfoolery like that http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif ) Then again there is this NO word in that sentence.

What we need is some clarification on this from CA.
Don't forget though that a few months have passed between the .com FAQ oublish date and the Turkish mag publish date.
I'm sure in one of the previews on Gamestar they mention something about the strategy map mode.

[khurjan]

i prefer 2 turns a yr makes game nice and interesting

[shingenmitch2]

Bah, RTS would be best.

Next best is 4-8 turns per year.

The idea that in M:TW an army could only move 1 province (let alone FRIENDLY province) in an entire year was completely out of whack with reality. These time/distance distortions became increasingly more stupid in comparison to the distances travelable in 1 turn by sea.

The limiting of a single (undivided) army to carrying out only 1 attack per year was another unrealistic byproduct of the time-scale. All sieges required a minimum of 2 years to complete (initial attack, then year for siege attack)--again silly. To make non-assault sieges even worthwile, the developers had to make them last 5-10 years, again a result of 1 turn = 1 year.

Alexander will never get to India if that time-scale is kept And the siege of Alesia goes on until Caesar is 80.

More strategic actions need to be able to occur during the span of a year. The Summer/Winter option is only marginally better than 1 turn = 1 year. (doubly better, but still not enough). With at least 4, you can model movement better and then the affect of seasonal weather becomes an added bonus during the battles.

[Balamir]

Surely seasons it shall be. It is such a waste of time to wait 1 year for your units to move somewhere which is 6 months away. Also in years you dont really care about the weather. If it is seasons you will have to think about snow deadly son or the heavy downpour of rain in autumn. Thats a vital part of strategy. Also years, bah how come your assasin manages to kill or not kill an emissary one province away in 1 whole year Duh a good assasin should be able to finish the job on max. 2 months which leaves 10 months as a waste. If it was seasons you could make him kill at least 3 guys in a year. I repeat my idea: definitely seasons..