Developer chat transcript

Was suprised to not see this posted yet ... I apologize if I missed another thread about this.

What have you done to ensure that fortifications and sieges are strategically significant?

In Rome... in order for players to control a region they must capture the city in that region. And so.. sieges are essential in order to expand your empire.

*Eksadiss-gs* In what ways has the AI been improved from the previous total war titles, previews, other developer chats, and the PC gamer?

In terms of the campaign the AI will now set ambushes, block mountain passes, and send invasion fleets to the heart of your empire. It will also negotiate treaties with your enemies, attempt to bribe your key family members, infilitrate your cities with spies and assasins and all manner of other devious tactics to keep you on your toes!
The battle AI also has number of tricks up its sleeve.
For example...Barbarian units will utilize their warcry's special ability to strike fear through your army, Partheian armies will utilize their horse archers to encircle your army peppering you with arrows and take any opportunity to charge into the rear or flanks of your exposed units.
There are also loads of extra tactics such as double envelopment which they will use when their army outnumbers yours but contains weaker units.

Adam14-gs* How will surprise attacks/ ambushes be presented when you are not the attacker?

First of all, the player's army will have no opportunity to deploy at the beginning of battle and their army will begin in column formation.
The ambushing army will be able to deploy all around your army.

*Eddie_Stone-911-gs* how many units will be allowed on any one given map at one given time?

The maximum amount of armies available on the battlefield at any given time is 8 and the maximum amount of units per army is 20. The maximum amount of soldiers per unit is 300.
g/a

*wormtyrant-gs* What are some of the major differences between previous total war titles and Rome?

The obvious big change is the upgrade in graphical quality. The battles now have fully 3D, polygonal, motion-captured troops. Siege attacks have siege towers, battering rams, sapping points, and all manner of other siege artillery to assult the huge, highly detailed cities.
But the biggest change is the campaign maps that is now a fully, 3d, living, breathing world which reflects the actual topography of Europe and North Africa.
Armies can move freely througout this world laying ambushes, and building forts to block mountain passes, and move deep into enemy territory to pillage their lands and siege their cities.
Overall a key change with Rome has been to maintain that depth of gameplay established fans of Total War have come to expect and yet provide help and guidence on all levels to make the game more accessible to the casual gamer.
An example of this is the full prologue tutorial and context sensative in-game advisors.

*-}EP{-Viper-}Goa{--gs* Are there any plans for future games like the total war series? Maybe set in modern times?

Maybe! =-)

*[ACID]PoP-SHoViT-gs* What different civillizations are there in the game?

There are about 24 factions.
There are 11 playable factions: Julii, Scipii, Romans, Brutii, Egyptians, Carthaginians, Seleucics...
Greek cities, Britons, Germans, Gauls, Parthians. Non-playable factions that the player will interact with include the Roman Senate, The Dacians, Scythians, Numidians...and more.

*|snpr|Power-gs* how long did it take to built the game?

4 years... and many nights! =-)

*Mardo2-gs* Is starvation still going to be the "easy" way of capturing a city or will it be more important to assault a city/fort?

You'll find it to be more strategically beneficial and a lot more fun to assult the cities rather than starving the populace to dead over several turns.

*[DJ]-gs* will all nations have there own special units, and abillities?

Yes. =-)
You'll be here all night if I listed them all here.

*Eksadiss-gs* Will forts be able to become villages like towns can become large cities?

No. However forts can be besieged in the campaign and fought over in the 3D battles.

*piperwilliam-gs* What is the final story on the "unlockable factions" issue?

Players will have to play their first campaign as one of the three Roman factions. If the player wins the campaign all the other playable factions will be unlocked. Also, if the player destroys an unlockable faction during a campaign game, that faction will become playable.

*Warlorddaslayer2-gs* Will you as the player be able to trade with the minor factions?

Yes.

*-Assassin-Sacrifice-gs* What will maintaining a good reputation with the mob and the senate gain you?

A number of things. Senatorial office for your family members (which can increase their command, management and influence abilities).
The senate can also give the player cash to help their cause when funds are low, exotic units that the player can't build through their tech tree, and more...

*-}EP{-Viper-}Goa{--gs* What role does religion play in Rome: Total War, and how is it integrated with culture?

Religion in the Roman world was less sigificant than it was in the medieval one. However, players can choose to build a temple to one of three Roman gods each of which will have a different effect on the city in which it is built.
These temples can increase happiness, public order, population growth, and unit strength.
Also, family members who are garrisoned in a city that contains a certain level of temple will attract priests from that temple that will join the character's personal retinue and give that family member various extra bonuses.

*BattleKnight0-gs* What have u done in order to make this game moddable? Relative easy code? Or do u intend to release specialised tools?

We'll talk more about this in the future but rest assured the game is very moddable.

*ScarecrowNector-gs* How does the sapping work and what can you build/destroy?

The player must first add a sapping point to the siege engine constuction que when the army is besieging an enemy city...
and when the battle begins the sapping point will automatically be placed opposite a section of the city wall. The player must then order a unit to enter the sapping point. That unit will then gradually dig underground until it reaches the wall. The wall will then gradually weaken and eventually fall.

*Tylzen-gs* Are there different period of times you can chooose to begin in, like Early, Middle and late age?

No.

*TuuSaR-gs* Can player declare war whenever against Senate starting from turn number 1.?

No. The player will first have to build up enough popular support from the people. Popular support can be gained in a number of ways such as controlling and maintaining a large empire, owning Wonders, keeping tax rates low, building public amenities, and lots of other things...
When popular support is high enough the player can choose to attack any of the other Roman factions. This will effectively instigate the civil war...
Also as the player's popularity with the people and the player's military power increases the senate will become increasingly threatened - and may decide to demand the suicide of the player's faction leader. If the player refuses, the senate will start a war against the player's faction - effectively kicking off a civil war.

Nice information. "demanding suicide of faction leader". Pigs. I'd better die fighting

I thought it was a pretty lame interview myself, most of the questions they asked CA had already told us (eg playable factions, faction unlocking and so forth). The only interesting bit of info was about the senate demanding suicide and sapping. The real question I wanna know is - Are faction re-emergences in RTW like they were in Medieval and on the same scale as Medieval, and whether there will be a good mix of elite and raw troops? I thought that was one of the best things with MTW, when you killed off the pope and he re-emerged with a top quality army of elite troops, had some fun battles trying to stop him. I dont really want re-emergences where my post marian legionnaires are facing peasants and militia hoplites!

Quote:

---

*[ACID]PoP-SHoViT-gs* What different civillizations are there in the game?

---

Wow, don't let them off too easy with those hard hitting questions. ~:rolleyes:

I hate to sound unappreciative of the fact that one of the devs took the time to do this, but that's got to have been one of the worst dev chats I've ever seen. Almost like they were filtering out any question that might have actually shed some light on the game. And it was SHORT, too.

Oh well. One more week and I'll get my answers first hand.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by d6veteran

The maximum amount of soldiers per unit is 300.

---

Dammit, I had hoped for about twice that.... ~:mecry:

300x20=6000?!?!?!?! wtf one can hardly field a single legion


baaaah, I hope this is moddable, I doubt it, but one can hope cant one?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lucius Lucullus

Dammit, I had hoped for about twice that.... ~:mecry:

300x20=6000?!?!?!?! wtf one can hardly field a single legion


baaaah, I hope this is moddable, I doubt it, but one can hope cant one?

---

That still allows for a maximum of 48,000 soldiers on the battlefield at once with 8 players. I shudder when I think of how most computers would run that. We didn't have any problems dealing with the reduced scale of the MTW armies and I think this allows almost 4x that number (if I am remembering correctly). Some day we will have boxes that allow us realtime simulation of multi-million man battles from WW1 & WW2, but for now I think this is a decent step.

Quote:

---

*-}EP{-Viper-}Goa{--gs* Are there any plans for future games like the total war series? Maybe set in modern times?

---

He should be shot for suggesting ruining the game. :furious3:
And all the question are from obvious n00bs, nothing interesting, or hard. Quite dissapointing.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TinCow

That still allows for a maximum of 48,000 soldiers on the battlefield at once with 8 players.

---

So? I dont play multiplayer, and the 48K number is a bit missleading, its still just 24K on each side.... so if you want any auxilary troops like cavalry and archers, you cant have more then four legions on each side...... baaah Jerusalem was taken with just four legions. I want more ~D

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lucius Lucullus

So? I dont play multiplayer, and the 48K number is a bit missleading, its still just 24K on each side.... so if you want any auxilary troops like cavalry and archers, you cant have more then four legions on each side...... baaah Jerusalem was taken with just four legions. I want more ~D

---

Well, surely they will provide for reinforcements like in MTW, so you could still have your 100,000 man army on the field all at once. Just make sure you let the first 94,000 die and you can then view their corpses along with your last very very scared 6,000. ~D

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TinCow

We didn't have any problems dealing with the reduced scale of the MTW armies and I think this allows almost 4x that number (if I am remembering correctly).

---

Sorry. You're mistaken. The max number of men for RTW's predecessors was:

STW - 8players * 16units * 120men = 15360men
MTW - 8players * 16units * 200men = 25600men

For RTW: 8players * 20units * 300men = 48000men

RTW/STW = 48000/15360 = 3,125
RTW/MTW = 48000/25600 = 1,875

Not exactly 4x it's predecessors... :wink:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Aymar de Bois Mauri

RTW/STW = 48000/15360 = 3,125
RTW/MTW = 48000/25600 = 1,875

Not exactly 4x it's predecessors... :wink:

---

You of course mean 3.125 and 1.875. :D I was looking at those for awhile wondering what 3,125 meant!


Ya not the greatest dev chat by far. Really I thought it was interesting from the perspective of the audience and questions they chose to answer. Very canned imo. But maybe that is the way most of these dev chats are?

Nothing new here, a week left then we will see how the game is

One thing I thought was interesting was the way the sappers work. I didn't come across this info before.

Am I to understand that a tunneling operation that takes weeks, will be done in minutes or hours? Or is it that you started tunneling before the battle? Like do you have to be holding a siege for x amount of time before you can use tunneling?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by d6veteran

You of course mean 3.125 and 1.875. :D I was looking at those for awhile wondering what 3,125 meant!

---

Nope. I mean 3,125 and 1,875. Only English and American use the point (.) as a separation between units and decimals. Everyone else uses the comma(,) .

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Aymar de Bois Mauri

Nope. I mean 3,125 and 1,875. Only English and American use the point (.) as a separation between units and decimals. Everyone else uses the comma(,) .

---

Ahh ok. I assumed you were using the English numeric notation since you were writing in ... English ;)

Playing around with Control Panel can be very educational. Don't forget to press Cancel though, or you can find yourself in another country, or sending messages from the future.

Meanwhile, back at the thread...

As with most dev chats, the questions were submitted to a moderator who only passed on the ones you see to our man Roxy, so you can't blame him for not answering questions he didn't get to see...

However, out of the kindness of his heart, Roxy has volunteered to answer - or ask around in order to find the answers to - five questions, if you can sort out a list amongst yourselves. The usual rules for 'unofficial CA contact' apply - we take no legal responsibility for the answers, some questions may not be answerable for legal reasons, ten questions is not five questions, if you don't like the offer we can always withdraw it, etc etc...

I suggest a spot of discussion over the weekend before someone posts up a clearly-marked final list.

Christmas already! Goody goody, let the fun begin...

Wow, great news!

that dev chat sucked

pure and simple

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by SouthwaterPanda

some questions may not be answerable for legal reasons, ten questions is not five questions.

---

Panda, I know I'm being a little nitpicking here, but since we are not entirely certain what questions we can ask, what about we submitted 8-10 questions to make sure we don't use up too many of the questions with illegal ones. So it will still be 5 questions answered. What say you?

Oh and btw, thanks. ~:cheers:

I'll have a look at the list on Sunday and tell you which ones you wouldn't get an answer to, if any. Then you can decide which five of the rest are the most interesting.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by SouthwaterPanda

I'll have a look at the list on Sunday and tell you which ones you wouldn't get an answer to, if any. Then you can decide which five of the rest are the most interesting.

---

Thanks a lot - this is great. ~:cheers:

@SouthwaterPanda - I wanted to add my thanks. ~:cheers:

I have always been fascinated by Roman history, and longed for a computer game that dealt with the period as well as board games like Imperium Romanum II by West End Games. I'm optimistic that RTW is finally that game, the Holy Grail of computer games for me personally. So it's good to see the level of support and accessibility that CA is providing. Looking forward to losing myself in Rome next weekend!! ~:)