Interview at CVG!

[Ituralde]

Just found this linked at the .com forums:

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=143296

A very interesting interview with Bob Smith. I especially like the sound of the last paragraph regarding multiplayer. Seems like the problem with the different armies, mentioned here a couple of times, has been solved by reintroducing the ear Early, High and Late for the multiplayer game. They're even trying to balance the units. Wonder how that's gonna turn out.

Cheers!

Ituralde

[L'Impresario]

This is quite encouraging, AI mentioned lots of times as well as having a paragraph for MP that provides actual information.
Actually the lack of eras could have broken gameplay balance by itself and impose a single playing style.

[Lord Adherbal]

yes, definitly good to hear they're back (I wonder if they listened to my complaining about this :P). Without Eras balancing would've been impossible, or atleast there wouldn't been a lot of obsolete units and armies would be unrealistic mixes of units from all periods.

[jwj442]

Some interesting stuff there. They seem to be working a lot more on the AI, and even mentioned that they were adjusting kill rates...

[Doug-Thompson]

Some interesting stuff there. They seem to be working a lot more on the AI, and even mentioned that they were adjusting kill rates...


Yes, but notice that "kill rates" were mentioned as one of the "loose ends" he was working on.

:wall:

[Ituralde]

Yeah sure, but on the bright side: Kill rates are worked upon! :2thumbsup:

[Trajen the 1st]

Wait so they'll do eras for MP but not SP? Great, seeing as nobody plays MP much I cant really see this as important.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

They might make them faster...

[Ibn Munqidh]

Historically, kill rates in battle and in individual duels were quite fast, not like hollywood sparring where one of the combatants fights, looses his sword then both start punching each other, then regain their swords, then .....

It usually ended within 20 seconds with someone dead.

[CBR]

And we can be pretty certain that battles didnt have each rank of soldiers killed off every 20 seconds. A soldier with armour and big shield is not that easy to kill.

The MP eras is nice but it still looks like its gonna be a clickfest...


CBR

[Oaty]

Historically, kill rates in battle and in individual duels were quite fast, not like hollywood sparring where one of the combatants fights, looses his sword then both start punching each other, then regain their swords, then .....

It usually ended within 20 seconds with someone dead.

For duels it was based all on skills of the 2 individiuals and thier style wether aggresive or defensive.

As far as battles the kill rates were slow until a route occurred and only then if they had sufficient cavalry that was within range to carry on the pursuit. The winners typically did'nt want to ditch there valuable armour to kill the losers, so in most cases infantry were safe from infantry.

As in the high kill rates when a route occurs I'd have to say RTW is more accurate for that matter than MTW is. Many armies were annilated from a route. But for gameplays sake I'd prefer MTW style as the A.I. usually could get away with a decent amount of men and quite often after 1 or 2 of these battles the A.I. cities are left wide open.

[Ibn Munqidh]

And we can be pretty certain that battles didnt have each rank of soldiers killed off every 20 seconds. A soldier with armour and big shield is not that easy to kill.

The MP eras is nice but it still looks like its gonna be a clickfest...


CBR

yes and such a person armed with a warhammer or an axe can kill quick, see.

[econ21]

I'm not sure you can talk about whether TW kill rates are "historical" in any literal sense[1]. The TW battle engine, while one of the best available, is too stylised to be taken as a direct representation. What actually went on in a battle - the orders, the pauses, the confusions, the fog of war etc - is light years away from the simple clash of units in the game. There's also an element of scaling - most real battles lasted much longer than we want to be spending playing them out and often involved a lot more men than our computers can handle. (RTW probably works best if you see it as 1 computer man = 10 real men.)

To me, the issue of kill rates, like movement speeds, is primarily a gameplay one - if they are too high, the action is too frenetic and hard to control. Slowing things down allows you to use tactics more and also to savour the action.

[1]If we were to take it literally, RTW kill rates are not necessarily absurd. I remember seeing a medieval warfare expert on TV with some of his students. He got one, a fit looking young man in armour to engage in sequential combat with half a dozen of the others. He was exhausted after 20 seconds.

[CBR]

yes and such a person armed with a warhammer or an axe can kill quick, see.

So according to you any battle between armies would be over in just a few minutes?


CBR

[Ibn Munqidh]

No because real battles included tens of thousands of troops, human moving-speed (unlike rome's) and people who tire quick.

[CBR]

Thousands of troops doesnt matter. A line would be perhaps 8 or 10 ranks deep and whole battle lines would clash together. Im not familiar with any descriptions of battles that tell of men getting chewed up as quickly as you claim.

In classic Hoplite battles the loser would have around 10-15% killed. Thats an average of 1 rank killed off if we assume 8 rank formation. I fail to see how men could get tired if they chopped up their opponents that fast and the whole battle would be over in literally seconds after the lines met.


CBR

[Crazed Rabbit]

The first is that the player now has to choose whether to develop their settlements as cities or castles. Castles produce quality troops, but relatively little money, whereas cities produce poor quality troops, but are economic powerhouses.

Because, of course, such things never happened in the middle ages!
Why can't it be more realistic, where you can choose to focus on trade or barracks or build both slowly up?


The other is the new recruitment system that makes it more difficult to build armies composed entirely of one or two types units. So now the player will have a realistic mix of troops in battle so they'll really have to figure out how to use those lighter cavalry or peasant spearmen within their tactics on the battlefield.

I think they should check out Lord of the Realm II.


Bob Smith: There's so many areas of the game I'm pleased with, however right now I'm particularly pleased with the way the castle/city choice has turned out - it adds a whole new layer of strategy to the campaign game.

ARGH! Enough with extraneous 'strategy' and more realistic AI, battles, and empire building!

Crazed Rabbit

[screwtype]

Not much that was new in this interview, except the parargraph about eras in MP.

The one new piece of info that I did find interesting was the talk about the mix of troops and the fact that it's not easy to recruit troops of all one type. The good thing about this, I think, is that it should help to avoid the phenomenon of really unbalanced AI armies (like peasant hordes, for example).

So this sounds to me like at least one feature which has the potential to improve gameplay.

[SpencerH]

So now the player will have a realistic mix of troops in battle so they'll really have to figure out how to use those lighter cavalry or peasant spearmen within their tactics on the battlefield

Hmmm? Yeah, I guess no one ever created a dominant army in the middle ages composed mainly of pikemen ~;)

[Orb]

Did I hear 'the awesome gameplay of Rome'?

:no:

[Fwapper]

to be presise... you read it. But anyhow.

I think this looks promising. Sure it is all by a man inside CA so it will probably be biased, but there were many AI and a few realism mentions.

I remain cautiously optimistic...

[Bob the Insane]

Well if you want realistic then you are going to need a baggage train and watercarriers...

Armoured knights would fight for like 5 minutes and then break off combat in an orderly fashion to drink water brought by the water carriers. If they didn;t do this? Well it was not unknown for people in heavy armour to keel over of dehydration and exhaustion in pretty short order.

Imagine seeing that in the game...

Personally as someone how greatly enjoyed MTW, RTW and RTW:BI as games I am really looking forward to M2TW and it's new and reintroduced features...

[Midnight]

Nice to see that eras are coming back. I hope the AI can build better than in could in original MTW, because Early games weren't challenging for long as the AI couldn't keep up with structures.

[Ituralde]

Eras are coming back in MULTIPLAYER ONLY!
So I'm sorry to say the AI won't be around to screw anything up concerning the eras.

[Lord Adherbal]

doesn't have anything to do with having eras or not. Either the AI can keep up with the player technology-wise, or it can not.

[sunsmountain]

It usually ended within 20 seconds with someone dead.
In Rome, it usually ends within 3 seconds with 2 men dead.

[Puzz3D]

I hope the AI can build better than in could in original MTW, because Early games weren't challenging for long as the AI couldn't keep up with structures.
That doesn't seem to be an intrinsic problem in RTW, although it was in MTW. I've played XGM for RTW/BI and the strategic AI has no trouble moving up the tech tree. This seems to be a matter of fine tuning which unfortunatly is lacking in the vanilla game.

It's great that the kill rates are being evaluated. However, the evaluator seems to think that the gameplay in RTW was awesome. Why isn't the community player they hired evaluating the kill rates?

[Geoffrey S]

It's nice that they're finetuning things now. Hope it leads to a better balance.

Whatever my complaints about RTW, it is the game I've played longest and I've still enjoyed it immensely. However, at a LAN party recently we got round to playing it and BI, and in multiplayer it was atrocious. At 10.000-15.000 denarii I would build a balanced army, whereas someone who had barely played the game went wild on cataphracts or berserkers - there was no stopping him, not even with two players. It just wasn't fun, and I hope at the very least costs are balanced to prevent this from happening.

That said, it was great fun playing against someone who also knew the game well and we both had good armies. Lots of maneuvering going on, and plenty of tense moments.

[Lord Adherbal]

Why isn't the community player they hired evaluating the kill rates?

I'm not sure I'm supposed to say this, but considering it won't hurt CA or MTW2 sales:

He is. It's certainly good to hear they are putting more efford into balancing in MTW2 (I wonder if they even bothered at all in RTW), but only time - or a demo - can tell if it'll be enough to win us MTW/STW vets back to the series.

[The Spartan (Returns)]

yes! eras!!!!!

[The Spartan (Returns)]

Eras are coming back in MULTIPLAYER ONLY!
So I'm sorry to say the AI won't be around to screw anything up concerning the eras.mp only? :inquisitive:

[Ituralde]

What plans do you have for multiplayer in Medieval 2?

Bob Smith: [...] We're also bringing back the choice of "eras" form the original Medieval [...]


combined with prasthereapers statement over at the .com:



4) Eras - lack of multiple starting positions

[...]

4) Each era is effectively a completely new campaign that needs to be individually setup, tested and balanced. Having multiple eras would inevitably delay release of the game.


lead to the only conclusion that the eras will be available in Multiplayer only.

Cheers!

Ituralde

[Puzz3D]

It's certainly good to hear they are putting more efford into balancing in MTW2 (I wonder if they even bothered at all in RTW), but only time - or a demo - can tell if it'll be enough to win us MTW/STW vets back to the series.
Well by the interview it certainly sounds like Bob Smith, the project manager, is going in to micromanage this, and he likes the gameplay of Rome.

They definitely worked on the kill rates and movement speeds in RTW, and made the choices they wanted. They even re-evaluated the movement speeds in the RTW demo, and told me they were ok.

[Lord Adherbal]

I guess the dev team behind RTW was almost entirely new, without much experience with MTW. That's the only way I can explain this dramatic change of gameplay, and the drop of so many realism features (combat penalties, unit speed, etc)

[screwtype]

the evaluator seems to think that the gameplay in RTW was awesome.

Yeah, I noticed that. Didn't exactly inspire confidence. Hopefully it was no more than a bit of hype.

[DisruptorX]

It's nice that they're finetuning things now. Hope it leads to a better balance.

Whatever my complaints about RTW, it is the game I've played longest and I've still enjoyed it immensely. However, at a LAN party recently we got round to playing it and BI, and in multiplayer it was atrocious. At 10.000-15.000 denarii I would build a balanced army, whereas someone who had barely played the game went wild on cataphracts or berserkers - there was no stopping him, not even with two players. It just wasn't fun, and I hope at the very least costs are balanced to prevent this from happening.

That said, it was great fun playing against someone who also knew the game well and we both had good armies. Lots of maneuvering going on, and plenty of tense moments.


Play 5,000-10,000 denarii for more balanced armies, and cataphracts are easy to counter with a solid phalanx wall.

[Tahanaman]

About the unit speeds, the only thing I can say about them from RTW-
CA must have had an Aboriginee and a horse with rider run side by side and compared the speeds, because here in Kentucky a man without armor carrying only a sword running flat out against a horse with rider carrying a sword simply can not run that fast away from the horseman. Beats me where they measured their running speeds.:wall: Maybe in Medieval times everyone ran like Yule Brenner decked out in full plate mail armor?

[Horatius]

yes and such a person armed with a warhammer or an axe can kill quick, see.

If that where so then Medieval Lords would have just armed entire armies with said war hammers, and axes.

[gunslinger]

I found it interesting that when Smith was asked about improvements to "the game and gameplay" he simply went on about the improved graphics. . . again.

I don't think I've ever seen a single posting at any of these forums begging for better graphics!

[The Wizard]

A very interesting interview with Bob Smith. I especially like the sound of the last paragraph regarding multiplayer. Seems like the problem with the different armies, mentioned here a couple of times, has been solved by reintroducing the ear Early, High and Late for the multiplayer game. They're even trying to balance the units. Wonder how that's gonna turn out.

Excellent, that reverses a particularly painful change that marred RTW for me: the absence of an elaborate tech tree. After some fifty to eighty turns (a fraction of the total possible playtime) in RTW, you had reached the end of the tech tree, and had all the most advanced and most powerful units that could be fielded. Moreover, the way to attain these most powerful of units was exceedingly simple: to get each of the most advanced production buildings all that was required was population growth. No tie-ins with other buildings (think smithies, markets, etc.) -- just straight upwards.

It made for an extraordinarily bland experience concerning the units you could produce, especially considering the enormous and diverse tech tree that MTW showcased, which was also renewed and increased every hundred turns or so. I, for one, quickly lost interest as from turn fifty onwards my armies would basically be the same and all I would be doing was churn out new ones, instead of developing my armies constantly. That, combined with the simplistic, gamey combat and the MTW AI that couldn't handle itself on the new map, made RTW very boring very quickly.

Edit: I read over the entire interview, and I must say -- the man does like his gimmicks, eh? That's all he really talks about. Gimmicks. Yay, castle can turn into city. Yay, more diplomatic options. Yay, you'll be forced to rely somewhat more on diversity -- but these are all features. Where's the big picture? These are all cool ideas, but they remain novelties and add little intrinsic value to the game. Why doesn't CA build a good foundation upon which to construct its fabulous little quirks -- instead of dumping them on quicksand?

[DisruptorX]

Excellent, that reverses a particularly painful change that marred RTW for me: the absence of an elaborate tech tree. After some fifty to eighty turns (a fraction of the total possible playtime) in RTW, you had reached the end of the tech tree, and had all the most advanced and most powerful units that could be fielded. Moreover, the way to attain these most powerful of units was exceedingly simple: to get each of the most advanced production buildings all that was required was population growth. No tie-ins with other buildings (think smithies, markets, etc.) -- just straight upwards.

It made for an extraordinarily bland experience concerning the units you could produce, especially considering the enormous and diverse tech tree that MTW showcased, which was also renewed and increased every hundred turns or so. I, for one, quickly lost interest as from turn fifty onwards my armies would basically be the same and all I would be doing was churn out new ones, instead of developing my armies constantly. That, combined with the simplistic, gamey combat and the MTW AI that couldn't handle itself on the new map, made RTW very boring very quickly.

Edit: I read over the entire interview, and I must say -- the man does like his gimmicks, eh? That's all he really talks about. Gimmicks. Yay, castle can turn into city. Yay, more diplomatic options. Yay, you'll be forced to rely somewhat more on diversity -- but these are all features. Where's the big picture? These are all cool ideas, but they remain novelties and add little intrinsic value to the game. Why doesn't CA build a good foundation upon which to construct its fabulous little quirks -- instead of dumping them on quicksand?


Those are my thoughts exactly! The tech tree in Rome is short and boring. Hell, in some factions in the expansion you literally can build every unit in your army immediately! RTW is lacking the "civilization" like aspect of MTW, which is one of my favourite things about the game. Maybe its just me, but there seem to be alot less variety of units in Rome, too. I remember playing as the turks and egyptians and having so much variety I couldn't decide what to build! Having multiple units that fufill the same role, but slightly differently, is a good thing.

In Rome, I only play multiplayer, really, because the campaign is boring, plain and simple.

[econ21]

Well, to be fair, historically armies do seem to have evolved more dramatically over the Medieval period than in that of republican Rome. Play any of the major RTW realism mods and there is precious little of a "tech tree" to speak of, with regard to units. Take the Romans for example - basically, their core army becomes all principes. Rather boring - brutally effective, no doubt, but still boring. Moreover, the realism mods tend to make it available to recruit from the full unit roster right from the beginning (waiting decades for triarii does not make much historical sense).

Some of the vanilla RTW factions have pretty impressive tech trees in terms of units - the Seleucids in particular. They start off with levy pikemen and prodomoi and slowly tech up. I think I was at the gates of Rome before I could get imitation legions. Never saw an armoured elephant (or even a Companion, IIRC).