Competition?

It seems that at last the PC games market has taken up to get into CAs field, which is a quite beneficial thing for us as customers since competition can only bring evolution and advances....
http://games.1c.ru/xiiicentury/img/gallery/1.jpg
http://games.1c.ru/xiiicentury/img/units/duke.jpg
http://games.1c.ru/xiiicentury/img/units/line.jpg
http://games.1c.ru/xiiicentury/img/units/klin.jpg
http://games.1c.ru/xiiicentury/image.php?id=2
http://games.1c.ru/xiiicentury/img/gallery/9.jpg
http://games.1c.ru/xiiicentury/img/gallery/5.jpg

Hellenes

A bit more information beyond - admittedly very good-looking - pictures would be helpful to judge whether this game might be a comptetition to MTW in any way.

What's the name of the game?

It appears to be called XIII Century, so I assume that it's about the 13th century. Interesting

Its XIII Century game from 1C a russian publisher:

http://games.1c.ru/xiiicentury/?action=files
Its in Russian and the game will feature tactical battles like in the TW series with a turn based strategic map...
Its nice to see the genre that the CA created to be filled up and flurish...

Hellenes

It looks very promising, I hope it'll be released in English too. However there seems to be very few factions in their first version. I hope they'll add more. I also wonder how many troops they support to have in the same battle.

Too bad I barely know the Cyrillic alphabet and hardly any Russian at all ~:) However words like Музыкальная тема and Галерея aren't that difficult to guess what they mean ~:)

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Originally Posted by LegioXXXUlpiaVictrix

Too bad I barely know the Cyrillic alphabet and hardly any Russian at all ~:) However words like Музыкальная тема and Галерея aren't that difficult to guess what they mean ~:)

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Just guessing from my limited knowledge of the Russian language, does that say Musical Team and Gallery?

XIII Century: Sword and Honor or XIII Century: Death or Glory. Depends which site you go to.

Here's the preview from IGN.

Here's a preview from neoseeker.

It looks exactly like a TW concept rip-off, but not as good. Remember the giant dookie that was "Imperial Glory"? I'm not at all impressed, though I too am pleased that competition has made its way into the genre. I think CA will remain the undisputed champ, but competition will ensure they don't get fat and lazy.

I know no russian :dizzy2:, and iv failed every foreign language class iv taken. :wall:

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Originally Posted by currywurry

Just guessing from my limited knowledge of the Russian language, does that say Musical Team and Gallery?

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Second one was correct, but I think the first one means "Musical theme" ~:)

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Originally Posted by LegioXXXUlpiaVictrix

Second one was correct, but I think the first one means "Musical theme" ~:)

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It roughly translates as Musical 'Tema', which could mean either. I'll check babelfish.

Checking b-fish, you're right.

Could be interesting

A russian devloping a game on the 13th century would be intresting, I would love to see a sim on the eastern front. The rise of Temujin to Ghenghis Khan to the battles in asia, middle east and to the expansion into poland, russian steppes, battle of Kiev and hungary.

While western 13th century games are awesome, and clearly dominating the genre a nitch like this might make it a hit with wargamers, along the lines of Birth of america, one of those games that deals with not so popular conflicts.

Its been my observation that the english market dosent get enough of the asian theatre of warfare pre japan warring states.

47 pics in the gallery, most of them are a bit rough around the edges. I suppose only time will tell if it turns out to be worth a try and yes it would be interesting to see the Russian take on the Mongol invasion

.......Orda

Looks awful to mee, too cartoonish, and the ranks of the soldiers seem so parallel and too straight.

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Originally Posted by Ibn Munqidh

Looks awful to mee, too cartoonish, and the ranks of the soldiers seem so parallel and too straight.

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But if it plays well and the AI is good. Then thats what people want.

I don't think this game will be real competitor to CA. I even doubt this game will ever be released. They started this project soon after release of first MTW, now they are still developing it but even graphics looks not as good as in TW. And the worst thing is that AFAIK there will be no campaign map in the game, only set of battles.

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Originally Posted by Dead Moroz

I don't think this game will be real competitor to CA. I even doubt this game will ever be released. They started this project soon after release of first MTW, now they are still developing it but even graphics looks not as good as in TW. And the worst thing is that AFAIK there will be no campaign map in the game, only set of battles.

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Just like Mount & Blade, i doubt if that will ever finish either.

Not only competition, new marketting jargon talks about "ecosystem". If Totalwar is the only game of its genre, the market would be smaller. But if there are 2 other competitors, the share of CA to the pie is not smaller than when they own the whole pie: the pie gets larger. If I like the genre, I may divert money from buying a game of another genre to this genre. It is common that players of a genre would buy other games of the same genre.

Annie

I think competition is good, it forces developers to start getting innovative to bring appeal to their game. Look at Relic and using a tired WWII theme with Company of Heroes, but they bring with it a whole new AI system and that game will draw a huge WWII crowd and make a overused timeline seem fresh and fun again.

If a company puts out a product with less graphics than a MTW2 then hopefully they will make up for it by some innovative AI or ideas. Yeah we are in the age of Eye Candy but compelling gameplay can win out too.

I'd actually say the game above looks better than RTW in term of graphics IMO. The ground and the trees look good, and the units melt into the terrain nicely, it looks seamless and smooth. I don't know why, but most East European game developers seem to be better at toning down the saturation of colors and go for smoother graphics while European and American developers seem to favor saturated colors a bit too much ~:) Only con for this game is that they've not yet shown any screens of actual battle action. If they're better than RTW at maintaining good battle lines etc. in battle (like STW/MTW or even better than that) I'd say that would make it more beautiful than RTW in total impression, even though RTW has some details this game hasn't got.

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Originally Posted by FallenJade

Not only competition

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I agree, I would probably buy both ~:)

Only five factions, Britain, Russian, France, Germany and Mongols.

I think its aiming a bit more to historical correctness. With few factions, the campaign map will apparently be eastern europe with france and britain thrown in.

also the game has been in development for like forever, i'd still try it though.