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View Full Version : Creative Assembly TW series lacks stat screens?



Debaser85
09-16-2004, 01:48
Something which I feel was sorely lacking from Shogun and Medieval was a post-campaign stat screen, much like the ones in the Age of Empires series.

In Medieval, a single game saw the player building an empire over a period of a few hundred years, commanding dozens of generals and fighting many battles - all while balancing an economy and watching the rise and fall of other empires around them.

And after putting all this time and effort into the game what is the player rewarded with? A measly end game screen!

With so much happening in the game wouldn't it be nice to be able to access timelines, graphs and similar charts which show the progress of your empire and the decline of others? Or a run down of the best generals in the campaign complete with the battles they fought and how many men they killed?

This is something which CA could easily have implemented in RTW and would add much longevity to the game, allowing us to compare stats or try to better them in the next campaign, better still, allow us to save them so we have a little something to keep, a memento of our great campaigns!

Am I the only person longing for this feature?

The Tuffen
09-16-2004, 02:05
It would be cool to get some kind of stats. I think this was discussed a while ago (or i could be thinking about a civ stat screen debate ~:confused:).

Colovion
09-16-2004, 02:35
Something which I feel was sorely lacking from Shogun and Medieval was a post-campaign stat screen, much like the ones in the Age of Empires series.

In Medieval, a single game saw the player building an empire over a period of a few hundred years, commanding dozens of generals and fighting many battles - all while balancing an economy and watching the rise and fall of other empires around them.

And after putting all this time and effort into the game what is the player rewarded with? A measly end game screen!

With so much happening in the game wouldn't it be nice to be able to access timelines, graphs and similar charts which show the progress of your empire and the decline of others? Or a run down of the best generals in the campaign complete with the battles they fought and how many men they killed?

This is something which CA could easily have implemented in RTW and would add much longevity to the game, allowing us to compare stats or try to better them in the next campaign, better still, allow us to save them so we have a little something to keep, a memento of our great campaigns!

Am I the only person longing for this feature?

Now that you mention it - yea!

I love the Age of... Series stats at the end of a battle - the economy, military, trade etc - all in numbers or in graphical form. Total War would deffinately benefit from a kind of menu of this nature. It would be so awesome to look back on your campaign and say "wow, they had a LOT of soldiers! I'm glad the French got in their way before they came knocking on my door!"

I think it gives a massive amount of perspective on the game that you really don't get otherwise.

I'm in full support of this. ~:)

Feanor
09-19-2004, 15:25
Good idea this. It'd be nice to have something at least.

The map showing the spread and decline of each nation in the Civilization games was good to watch, especially if you were going to and fro over a city with your neighbours. Something similar could also have been included for MTW.

I'd also like to be able to see stats for all the units used in a battle, not just those who remain at the end. For example, if you withdraw archers that have run out of ammo how do you see how many kills they got after they've been replaced by a fresh unit?

I think end game stats could've been split into a few categories such as:

Generals/battles tab:

Most prisoners killed - Feanor, English - 120 000
Most battles won - Feanor, English - 17
Most battles lost - Dave, Turks -12
Most captured general - Pepe le Pew, French - 17
and so on

Leaders tab:

Longest Reign: King Charles, French - 48 years
Shortest Reign: Johnny Pope, the Papacy - 2 years
Greatest Builder: Andronicus, Byzantines - 68 buildings

Faction tab:

Richest nation: Germans - 123456789 florins total income
Poorest nation: Sicilians - 12 florins total income
Most successful inquisitions: Spanish - 49
Most assassinations: Turks -92


This is a short and hasty list and I'd like to stress all names and factions were picked at random for illustrative purposes.

Colovion
09-19-2004, 17:43
Good idea this. It'd be nice to have something at least.

The map showing the spread and decline of each nation in the Civilization games was good to watch, especially if you were going to and fro over a city with your neighbours. Something similar could also have been included for MTW.

I'd also like to be able to see stats for all the units used in a battle, not just those who remain at the end. For example, if you withdraw archers that have run out of ammo how do you see how many kills they got after they've been replaced by a fresh unit?

I think end game stats could've been split into a few categories such as:

Generals/battles tab:

Most prisoners killed - Feanor, English - 120 000
Most battles won - Feanor, English - 17
Most battles lost - Dave, Turks -12
Most captured general - Pepe le Pew, French - 17
and so on

Leaders tab:

Longest Reign: King Charles, French - 48 years
Shortest Reign: Johnny Pope, the Papacy - 2 years
Greatest Builder: Andronicus, Byzantines - 68 buildings

Faction tab:

Richest nation: Germans - 123456789 florins total income
Poorest nation: Sicilians - 12 florins total income
Most successful inquisitions: Spanish - 49
Most assassinations: Turks -92


This is a short and hasty list and I'd like to stress all names and factions were picked at random for illustrative purposes.

yea exactly - and then throw in some graphs for the Rise and Fall of Empires via income, troop production and land ownership.

Louis VI the Fat
09-21-2004, 14:51
Oh, how I'd loooove to see some stats and map-replays...


But alas. I've asked for them on every forum, on every game, and have yet to see a strategy game with even half-decent stats.:furious3: :veryangry: ~:mad: :furious: :veryangry2: :bigcry:


And oh, Feanor, those are exactly the kind of stats I'd love to see!

Colovion
09-21-2004, 15:43
Oh, how I'd loooove to see some stats and map-replays...


But alas. I've asked for them on every forum, on every game, and have yet to see a strategy game with even half-decent stats.:furious3: :veryangry: ~:mad: :furious: :veryangry2: :bigcry:


And oh, Feanor, those are exactly the kind of stats I'd love to see!

ever played the Age of... Series? THey have good end of game stats ~:cheers:

Tamur
09-21-2004, 16:09
Wow, great idea. That would be a very cool feature --- huge amount of data for the engine to keep track of but heck, bits are cheap these days ~:) Post-mortem statistics are priceless.

Louis VI the Fat
09-21-2004, 16:12
ever played the Age of... Series? THey have good end of game stats ~:cheers:

I played it, but didn't enjoy it enough to finish a game.

What a drag, the one game with good stats is just about the only strategy game I don't like... :no:

GilJaysmith
09-21-2004, 16:21
There was a plan to include a scrolling set of stats at the end of a campaign, mostly serious but occasionally funny (like Dungeon Keeper's end-of-level summary). The logging code went in, but we didn't have enough time to put in and test the calls to log events, so the feature didn't make it in the end.

saundersag
09-21-2004, 16:33
You said that you did not have enough time on mtw to add the stats screen, but for rome have you had enough time? As you had an extra year then you first intended have you managed to squeese this in.

Louis VI the Fat
09-21-2004, 16:46
we didn't have enough time,...... so the feature didn't make it in the end.

Such a pity. From what I've read across countless forums, diehard strategy games lovers are stats lovers as well...

More than once have I read that stats and replays were planned, but couldn't make because of time pressure.

I understand that for a game aimed at a mass audience stats are nothing more than an 'extra', a last minute addition.

But I also hope that developers will realize some day that relevant and intelligent stats and replays can give their games an edge with the -influential!- hardcore community...

Sethik
09-21-2004, 22:11
There was a plan to include a scrolling set of stats at the end of a campaign, mostly serious but occasionally funny (like Dungeon Keeper's end-of-level summary). The logging code went in, but we didn't have enough time to put in and test the calls to log events, so the feature didn't make it in the end.

Could there be a patch to finish this? Or will it be asking too much? (Don't want to sound like one of those unappreciating(sp?) a-hole fans.)

SouthwaterPanda
09-21-2004, 23:00
There are no updates to MTW or VI in the pipeline, so no, afraid not.

Colovion
09-21-2004, 23:17
There are no updates to MTW or VI in the pipeline, so no, afraid not.

but,... but what about Rome? ~D

Ldvs
09-22-2004, 15:31
but,... but what about Rome? ~D

Can't you see they're avoiding the question ~;p
As a privileged north american you'll find out within 2 days.

Debaser85
09-22-2004, 19:19
Heh, I thought my thread had disappeared into obscurity.
Anyway, I'm glad others like the idea, and even more pleased that members of CA replied! Cheers guys!

Shame we won't see it in Rome.

Colovion
09-23-2004, 08:08
Heh, I thought my thread had disappeared into obscurity.
Anyway, I'm glad others like the idea, and even more pleased that members of CA replied! Cheers guys!

Shame we won't see it in Rome.

OH SNAP! ~:eek:

http://www.twcenter.net/pics/layout/links/egyptmap.jpg

Debaser85
09-23-2004, 10:13
Take it you've read Sibs review then eh? ~:) I was just going to post that screenie myself!

So some stats have been implemented, thank you CA! Better still, it seems that you can access them at any point in the game. Nice.

EatYerGreens
09-23-2004, 19:15
I'd also like to be able to see stats for all the units used in a battle, not just those who remain at the end. For example, if you withdraw archers that have run out of ammo how do you see how many kills they got after they've been replaced by a fresh unit?

IN STW at least, somewhere in the Game options menu is a tickbox for "Create Battle Log file", which you can activate.

These are not straightforward Honour gained, kills, losses figures like in the end-battle summary but the answers you want are in there. Reams of information to pick through, as it records the fate of every soldier on the field. If you fight a lot of battles in a campaign and have armies in the thousands, these things will start to eat up disk space.

They are plain text files, with a standard layout so if somebody could write an app to parse them in batches and create a full battle-by-battle campaign summary then that would be great.

I've seen (but failed to bookmark) a website which can do this kind of analysis on a single battle log, which you submit while online. One of the other forum regulars might know of this and paste in a link to it. Maybe if enough people get in touch with them they could upgrade the online applet into a full-blown downloadable prog which would do this.


Dear CA - if the intricacies of in-game event-logging require an unfeasible amount of pre-release testing, is there any chance of knocking together a post-hoc campaign analysis proggy like this for us? (I can't find a crawling-on-bended-knees smiley) Okay, it'll be limited to battle records but it's a start.