Why can you not save campaign battle replays?

It seems to me that the engine for the battles is exactly the same.

So why is there no option to save the replays of battles in the campaign? After all, the most interesting battles happen there, especially from an emotional perspective. I'd assume every one here has had a few great battles where the odds were against them and they won, or they sieged the last settlement of a faction, or any other number of great things. So why can we not save them?

I must have missed the discussion on this, as I can't find ithe answer anywhere .. did CA tell us why?

Isn't it annoying? You can save replays in battles like custom, I think...but none in the campaign. I think it's on the list of things we want for the patch.

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Originally Posted by HicRic

Isn't it annoying? You can save replays in battles like custom, I think...but none in the campaign. I think it's on the list of things we want for the patch.

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Crossing fingers and toes and hoping really hard for this one...

ElGuapo from AH?

That I can't save the battle for later viewing is annoying.

I remember one battle at Crete, which I invaded with Seleucid empire. My onagers used flame-ammo on enemy hoplites and HIT, and it had some awesome phalanx battles too. Moments like that you want to save.

I think CA left it out because it was too buggy. As I understand it, a replay is not like a video recording, which records actual footage, as this would require too much disk space. Instead it saves an abstracted version of what happened, and this is where the errors creep in. If you play back some replays, you see things that never happened in the original battle.

Talking about irreproducibility, suddenly "quantum mechanics" pops into my mind. ~D Perhaps there are certain random variables (intentional or not) in RTW campaign battles that prevent an accurate replay? ~:)

There were some bugs in MTW where your replay could result in an entirely different army winning the battle, sometimes. Kind of weird to watch a 'replay' that was totally different to the real thing.

The thing is, they included replays for some game modes in RTW. Why not allow them in all game modes? It seems reasonable, and they've done it before in STW and MTW...

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Originally Posted by Maltz

Talking about irreproducibility, suddenly "quantum mechanics" pops into my mind. ~D Perhaps there are certain random variables (intentional or not) in RTW campaign battles that prevent an accurate replay? ~:)

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Agree. My theory is that people's suspicions about AI cheating has a seed of truth. Not that it cheats but that there is an element of chance or randomness which is not part of the hard dice roll results and rigid formulae of the game physics. In multiplayer, obviously the game engine will work STRICTLY using the encoded rigid calculations for everything: arrow physics, fatigue rates, terrain, morale, etc to ensure an absolute even playing field. I'm guessing the custom battle AI is beholden to the same limits.

But in campaign mode, the AI may have certain on the fly randomizers during a battle. This would allow for behind the scenes dice rolls, perhaps even modified by such transient things as the timing of a player's mouse clicks or odd/even seconds on the system clock (who knows) that give a bit of fuzziness to the result tables.

This fuzzy physics /morale /decision making system would allow for more flavour and surprise to spice up the otherwise dry and predictable AI (all games tend to have predictable AI.. it's not a bash against RTW).

This quasi "quantum" uncertainty wouldn't necessarily give the AI an advantage, but just make it feel more organic and random.

Just a theory.