Hardly: in the ancient Mediterranean, the MO was to ram your ship into another and board it. It would be just as intense. Also, flamethrowers.
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Brilliant! I stand corrected...
Andy, I would be surprised and shocked if I found out you have not applied to work for CA, since you clearly known precisely what CA needs.
On a more serious note, please put aside the anthropocentric views. They aren't really handy when looking objectively at an issue such as AI. You bring up some issues in your post that aren't relevant to battle AI as much as they are to strategic AI. What you take for granted is one thing, what computers are created to do is a completely different one. Battle AI can do many things you'd expect it to do. It's quite more tangible and flexible in the hands of a programmer. With regards to strategic AI, the only ones winning in this field are the chess programmers. And even there one still sees a majority of the work put into pure tactical calculations. Again, to recap, don't expect much from a big-picture strategic standpoint. Battle AI can and has been improved heavily over the decades. Strategic AI can only act so much as a human does. Strategic games of the hybrid genre such as Rome are a very long way off from reaching your or my level, let alone Washington, Napoleon, or Eisenhower. Any higher expectations, I would say, border on ludicrous.
I have to disappoint and shock you. ;)
I don't really agree with you here. Give a computer time and CPU and it will quite easily find the best solution. It just needs to check all possible outcomes for several moves in a row. Higher difficulty levels on chess computers (at least on the one I'm experienced with), just means more turns the AI will take into account. It calculates for every possible series of moves the losses and takes, and simply follows the one with the highest outcome. It could be refined (meaning: checking which one of parallel outcomes is more likely to be achieved), but then we're no longer talking about the kind of chess-computer that is to be sold to any greater public.Quote:
On a more serious note, please put aside the anthropocentric views. They aren't really handy when looking objectively at an issue such as AI. You bring up some issues in your post that aren't relevant to battle AI as much as they are to strategic AI. What you take for granted is one thing, what computers are created to do is a completely different one. Battle AI can do many things you'd expect it to do. It's quite more tangible and flexible in the hands of a programmer. With regards to strategic AI, the only ones winning in this field are the chess programmers. And even there one still sees a majority of the work put into pure tactical calculations.
I fail to see the difference between what's needed for a better strategic and a better battle-AI. Both use essentially the same algorithms, with the battle-AI the most complex ones (because she faces binomial and path-finding problems that need to be solved in real time).Quote:
Again, to recap, don't expect much from a big-picture strategic standpoint. Battle AI can and has been improved heavily over the decades. Strategic AI can only act so much as a human does. Strategic games of the hybrid genre such as Rome are a very long way off from reaching your or my level, let alone Washington, Napoleon, or Eisenhower. Any higher expectations, I would say, border on ludicrous.
In the underlying text I'm basicly arguing the differences between a better BAI and the current one are - for the larger part - quite easy to implement. We already have the needed aspects of a decent BAI, they just need a tiny bit more input to be remarkable more effective.
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
I'm sorry to disappoint you Andy, but you can't do too well when it comes to strategic AI. Perhaps you have never played with AI?
Ask a computer to create fractals, to do math, to add up pawn-values on a chess board, and so on, and it will do so millions of times faster than you or I could.
Ask a computer to create original art, original theorems, original strategic maneuvers that are counter-intuitive and go against the "best-case" scenarios. It fails miserably. Three-year old chimps do a better job.
This is the drawback of a computer. This is what our neuroscientists are working on every single day here at the labs: to figure out what exactly is it that makes the human brain so much more, at least apparently, creative than a machine that works digitally.
Check this out http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=359792
Did you notice this statement as well? It's from the article they link to on ign.com
"Though in possession of full details, our lives wouldn't be worth living if we divulged what we know, but let's just say that the new PC-only game eschews the gunpowder weaponry of recent Total War titles and gets back to basics"
So no 1800's... My guess (and most people's guess I think) is Rome 2. RTW was far too successful for them to not revisit the era. But, I guess you never know. Here's to hoping that CA's higher regard for historical accuracy that was shown in Napoleon will remain for Rome 2 (and ideally become a much higher regard).
Or a Greece total war, given the helmet type...
I too hope for a second Rome. Although I should probably be more concerned by the high pace at which they release new games, rather than excited about the sequal of a great game now about five years old.
I actually don't care what time period the next TW is about as long as it is as moddable as RTW. From RTW onwards the modding part of the game have gone more and more difficult.
I also noticed this: http://www.actiontrip.com/rei/commen...ml?id=072707_8
It's quite old (2007), but he does specifically mention a follow up to Rome. Who knows though. We'll see in a few weeks.
Rome 2 would be great! I'm sure alot of the people on this forum would be pleased! If more moddable imagine an EBIII!? What would the members of this forum think if perhaps the new TW was going to center on the Greek states (judging from the helm clue in the tread on the entrance hall forum)? I'm excited no matter which it is!
Aw, show a little optomism!!! I know it's premature speculation to expect and EBIII when EBII hasn't even been released, but I was merely trying to psyc-up the EBers about the upcoming TW title. Though they will probably be playing EBII when it's released and won't show the new TW title much interest. I personally will try both. I am ambydexterous in that way!!
No negative sarcasm, subconcious perhaps, but not intentional!!
Thanks for the congrats, friend!!! Here's to 500 more!!! (hopefully useful and intelligent)!!!
I think CA will release the next TW game on the E3, or that's what I hope...
I'll place my bets on R2TW, just because RTW sold like crazy. Brace for even better looking Roman Ninjas!
Well, hopefully they'll maybe reverse their decision when Rome 2 comes out - because let's face it, we're gonna need the EB team to correct all the historical screw-ups that CA manages to pull off. But from the sound of it, that may be a long ways away - if ever. -M
Releasing it without hyping it first would seem an odd decision to me.
That statement must have been made at a moment where both ETW and NTW offered few modding possibilities. With the next TW-title, the situation might (I repeat: might) be more favourable to the modding community. Other than that: even if some EB-members decided to retire after or even before the release of EB2, there would most likely be others who wouldn't. Just take a look at the team that made EB1: a considerable part of the team has either quit the team or left the modding-arena. (No bad words about these members. They somehow deserve a life too.)
kind regards,
Andy
That would be a shame, not to experience the vision of such talent. I do realize they have lives however. Oh well, we don't even know if the presumed Rome 2 will be moddable.Quote:
EB team announced that they won't make EB III after II, because it consumes too much time.
edit: posted before I read the above post. (I do that all the time!)
It seems awkwardly amusing reading the sentences that refer to the EB Team in such a distanced tone. It is almost as if there is a concept that there are two worlds: The Realm of Humans, and The Realm of the EB Team...
The so-called "Realm of EB" is a human construct. It falls into the higher-tier construct "Real of Humans". By MediaWiki categorization, the EB Team may fall under the Humans category, but since the development team of Europa Barbarorum transcends humanity, they get their own realm/category...
A few points to consider w.r.t. EB 3:
- EB II gets made largely because M2TW and RTW overlap considerably in “how things are done”. There are differences; and significant ones, too. But there are similarities which mean that a large body of engine know-how could be transferred without too much issues. You have no idea how important it is that any halfway sane person can edit a description text, or put a few unit cards into the mod; until you've made a 400 odd units mod. Like EB 1, for instance.
That same major benefit was lost with later games; where if I understand things correctly, one must use a fairly complex and hairy tool (essentially a tailored hex-editor) to hope that changes actually propagate somewhere halfway the right direction. This is not conductive to building an EB 3.- There was relatively quickly a thorough understanding of what the M2TW (and specifically Kingdoms) engine could do that RTW can not. There was also a relatively quickly a thorough understanding of how one could apply this to the concept of EB; again something that lacks in later games. This was entirely CA's doing: they released an unpacker and a set of docs that explained some of the new scripting statements.
This is much less the case, if at all, with the later games. For instance, if I understand things correctly modders work with .lua files. This suggests that the later games incorporate a Lua interpreter so that they incorporate a full programming language with support for complex scripts well beyond the realm of RTW/M2TW. But as I understand it: nobody actually knows what the API (exposed routines and data) of the engine is because unlike M2TW/Kingdoms there are no equivalents to the unpacker and docs as supplied by CA. So everyone is largely still working on a few opaque file formats rater than the much more interesting topic of maximising the engine's potential. This is not conductive to making a mod like EB 1, which almost entirely relies on there being a halfway solid body of knowledge to mold the game into something more fitting.- Ultimately EB depends on a few people capable of pushing the mod forward. And they are not at all interchangeable; and they are few. If they decide to put EB on hold, or if they decide to quite doing this; then that puts EB on hold, or ends part of EB. This means that if they don't want to do EB 3, it is 99% likely there will not be an EB 3.
Continuing this line of thought, and assuming the team dissolves (itself) after EB 2 is deemed done; it would mean that some other talented people would have to get together and start their own EB 3 to do it. And such a thing takes motivation of the kind that usually means a person would have found and applied for EB membership long before that point. And it also takes skill/knowledge which means such a person might have well been contacted or made an EB member already.
This would be revolutionary...
Well it would be revolutionary since no TW mod was based in Greece yet :D...
Let's just hope it's not Sparta:Total War
No, 300: Total War, including Persian rhinos and minotaurs.
Thanks alot for your explanation Tellos Athenaios.
It will be STW2
The "up to 56,000 units in a single battle" looks promising. If it were open to modders, it might be a great hit.
"One particularly novel development is the introduction of hero units. These are warriors who have perfected a fighting art and can carve their way through enemy armies without much trouble at all. Based on mythologized historical figures like the warrior monk Benkei, hero units are a nearly unstoppable force on the battlefield, capable of holding bridge crossings against entire armies, or smashing through a battle line to engage the enemy general. You can counter heroes with the right tactics, such as filling them full of arrows, or by having your own hero units engage them in duels. The development team may even consider letting players use political manipulation to sway heroes away from each other. "
And here we all thought Arcani and flaming pigs were bad...
I don't really care about historical accuracy in the vanilla-version. CA wouldn't be able to keep up with the dozens of historians and modders that constitute the modding-community. Therefore, it might actually be a good idea to focus on hardcoded aspects and moddibility rather than on number of units or even historically accurate units. So far, nothing from that frontier however. Closer to the release date, we might know more.
I think a few ridiculous hero units could be fun. I would rather have them and have accurate unit types other than that than have ridiculous unit types. The way I see it, having an entire unit of something completely inaccurate ruins it more than just one guy who happens to be ridiculous. Still, I'd probably prefer neither.
I'm glad they decided to revisit Shogun simply for the smaller scale it provides. The scale of Empire was one of the things that ruined it, and part of the reason Napoleon is better is because the scale is smaller. With Shogun's small scale, a lot of detail can be put into everything. Don't get me wrong, I love the epic nature of Total War games, but sometimes the scale is detrimental, because it means the details are neglected.
More detail and larger scale warfare in a game are not necessarily incompatible. They are doable and require a dedicated development team with time and resources on their side. Smaller scale warfare games cannot arguably get away with the relatively lesser detail that a larger scale warfare game can get away with. In any case, all of this aside, the scale of warfare that any game adopts goes to show the variety of tastes in people, and the variety of people in general. You have those who wholeheartedly enjoy those games in which you control either one soldier or only a select group, and you have those who select games on the scale of those from the Total War series. I stand on the larger end of the spectrum. Total War is indeed bittersweet!
I don't think they're incompatible, and I like epic scale (anyone who plays Total War does). In fact, if CA had spent maybe a year longer on Empire and ironed out issues and improved historical accuracy, it could be one of the best in the series (it certainly had the most potential in terms of the world map). But unfortunately, deadlines mean they have to make choices and sometimes one aspect suffers over another. Regardless, I think Shogun 2 is actually a good choice simply because it will be quite a change of pace for the series as of late.
I have no faith in this. Sure, the graphics will overwhelm us, the battles will be epic and the whole thing will feel refreshing for the first week, but after that it will be like ETW all over again and we will be disgusted by the boring gameplay and low complexity.
I'll keep waiting for EBII instead, no mater how long it takes. Best thing out there.
Logic phail. EBII ain't the best or worst thing out there, cause it ain't out there, wherever "there" is. It escapes me, but there was some terminology used to describe that phenomenon wherein your thoughts or predictions of something or some event shape your eventual perception of it. You expect the worst in the new release? Then you'll get the worst. Expect the unexpected (i.e. something new and not in any other TW game)? Then you'll likely get something exciting.
What i find the most intriguing is this :
"The game's AI is being programmed according to Sun Tzu's Art of War. As one of the core foundations for this kind of mix of melee and ranged warfare, Sun Tzu is an obvious starting point, but what was particularly revealing is how much Sun Tzu talks like a programmer. If, for example, you outnumber the enemy more than five-to-one, Sun Tzu recommends an enveloping move. If you outnumber the enemy two-to-one, he prefers a direct engagement."
Does this means no more Artificial Idiot ?
Wise words. I always hope for something interesting when a new TW game is on the way.
I wonder how this game will turn out, though. What will the map be like? Most importantly, how will they give the factions a unique flavour? The latter is important for a video game, but alas, the various daimyos fighting for power during the Sengoku Jidai have essentially the same army make-up.
I'm not sure about these Hero units , though.
oh what would be nice ...
-multiple animations for each unit (they already have skins )
mostly for the elite type units .. where you would of had a wide array of personal weapons brought onto the battlefield .. like watching a group of dismounted knights in mtw2 all carrying swords and shields.. or an entire unit of 2h swords .... having a mix of 1h and 2h weapons and different type of weapons would be nice with fitting animations ..
-advanced animation collision etc
more "flowing" i guess when units are attacking each other .. instead of this great pause with the units standing behind .. i can understand a certain disciplined unit of phalanx or spearmen holding a formation ... but maybe something different from just standing behind .
updating the way animations interact during combat with possibly "pushing" motions ? multiple units attacking single units ( when available) , as now we always have that constant dueling going on for the most part.
-animations effected by their weapons and surroundings
it always seemed strange to me how (when you get bored and start looking closely at the details ) of how a group of spearmen would attack well in a confined space whilst on a wall .. it seems as though there would hardly be any room for this spear and shield to move and thrust a weapon .. *shrug*
-breaking weapons/changing weapons?
how about when horses charge , there is a chance for the lances to break .. instead of having them charge with a lance effect over and over ?
an option to force units to change weapons instead of some sort of automatic processes that calls for them to change from spear to sword etc, and top that off with more than 2 weapons per unit maybe or at least the option to mod this =P
that should do for now lol
They've said that same thing from Medieval 2 on. "We realize the AI sucked before (nevermind no major reviewer seeming to notice), and we're going to make it just like a human player this time!". Something very close to that was in an old PC Gamer Medieval 2 preview. Same was said for Empire yet again. Now for the newest game.
Well, the breaking lances feature was actually in M2TW. Your cavalry had to wait for their lances to "recharge" (you can pretend they're being resupplied by squires or something I suppose) before they could charge with them again. Plus, you can already change weapons by using the alt-click attack key, but it can be quite glitchy. It would be really nice to see a variety of weapons and animations in a unit.
I think you're being overly pessimistic. To be sure, Shogun 2 will hardly be perfect, and the AI probably won't be great, but it will probably be a step up from Napoleon and Empire battle AI simply because Total War battle AI seems to do much better with melee battles than gunpowder fights. I'm not claiming RTW battle AI is good, but it does a better job than Napoleon or Empire.
Additionally, as I mentioned earlier, I believe the relatively small scale of this game (in the grand scheme compared to other Total War games) actually allows more focus on complexity and detail. And even if it is a quite flawed game, which is always a possibility, you cannot deny that it will be a change of scenery, considering that this is the first time since the first Shogun that a TW game is not focused primarily on Europe and the Middle East (ETW is somewhat of an exception, but not really, as most of the playable factions are European).
I'd rather they focus their efforts on better campaign AI than battle AI to be honest. As long as the battle AI is mediocre like in Rome or Medieval 2, it won't be that horrible, but they need to work on campaign AI. If the computer can actually behave well on the campaign map the game will be much more challenging than if it behaves well on the battle map but does little campaign wise.
Pessimism only prevails because you let it.... We have no idea what the game will be like, why not be optimistic? To me it doesn't make sense to complain about how bad something will be before it even comes out. Seems like wasted energy to be honest.
I don't want to see another Shogun game - that era and location has already been exhausted. Rome II would be nice, but it would be too limited and a rehash.
I want to see:
1. Ancient Eurasia: Total War
2nd century: Han Empire vs Parthian Empire vs Roman Empire vs Mayuran Empire - the world's 4 greatest 2nd century civilizations in a free for all battle would be freking sweet
2. Qin-Han Empire Total War
3. Three Kingdoms Total War
4. Warring States to Qin Empire Total War (one of the earliest cases of actual "total war"
5. Mongol Empire Total War (conquer everyone)
6. Ming-Korean-Japanese War (Imijin war?), complete with random European trading factions and Portuguese selling weapons
7. 8th century Eurasia: Total War
Tang Dynasty vs Sassanids vs Byzantines
Other/Expansion ideas:
1. Peloponnesian War: Total War, and then all the wars in which Sparta continuously gets their @$$ kicked
2. Greco-Persian War
Ugh, I just found out the next Total War Game is Shogun 2....that is kinda lame. I predict CA will just turn it into a remake - basically Shogun 1 with better graphics and even crappier AI.
Wow, I just read a few comments at Gamestar (Hungarian one) and they are like "OMGZOR IT'S STW2 WIT HEROS WOWOWOWOWO TOTAL WARZOR DA PWNZOR". I was afraid to post anything.
My pessimism stems from experience. And with hero units, I'm not going to be optimistic either, particularly when one hero is a mythological hero...it could be worse
I know it stems from experience. Still's a waste of time though... because all you're doing is putting negative energy into something we know nothing about
I'm not particularly optimistic about the heroes either though, but if Tom Cruise is in, I don't see what could go wrong :clown:
EDIT:
On a more serious note though, I just read this on heroes. It seems the ign article was a bit (read as: very) misleading about them and this is how CA actually wants them described
This sounds much better, although I'm still skeptical and I do NOT want this turning into an RPG.Quote:
Hero Units: - These are not one man armies that destroy everything that opposes them. These are highly ranked elite units, available at the top of the tech tree who exemplify a mastery of a given martial technique (E.g. sword fighting). They are able to take on other heroes, and are naturally very powerful against groups of enemies but are not invincible game-changers. These figures are also based on true historical accounts of great fighters who founded schools of combat, not myths that take on whole armies and win.
The text is from here by the way.
The Shogun 2: Total War forum is up. Let's head there to discuss the possibilities.
Call me a cynic but that's called marketing. Read the paragraph again and see if anything tangible is actually promised or if it simply sounds good. Yet, somewhere, I guarentee there's a kid out there thinking.......Sun Tzu! cool!
Edit: Heroes? Seriously? I wish CA would make a good game and not have a bunch of execs sitting in a room trying to second guess what the 14 yr olds will buy. Then again - I'm not 14 so maybe I'm just not the target audience :D.
Hero units?
That would be World of Total Warcraft, wouldn't it?
Shogun 2: Total WoW. What will they think of next?
hehe not even close to what i meant , though that idea needs a lot more work ... and yes the alt clicking is glitchy at best,... you are responding to me like i have never played a TW game? :grin2:
though.. if there was a "camp" where your horses or soldiers could run back to and "re arm" .. then it might simulate that...
either way .. off to the stw2 forum :book:
Sorry, I wasn't trying to presume anything, I thought maybe you hadn't played Medieval 2 and didn't know about the lance feature. I agree though, it's not a great representation.
Realistically though, in my opinion, they need to focus on improving AI and historical accuracy before they move on to more minor details like breaking lances, although the details would be nice to see as well.
Sorry Ludens, last post about this here from me.
No offense meant to 14 yr olds. It's the middle age game execs (and movie directors) who try and second guess what they think 14 year olds will like I reserve some contempt for since it's usually based only on an interpretation of what has sold in the past.
Shogun 1 had the sword masters so having different kind of single man units with names is pretty cool. :)
Beeing able to choose the skills the generals get, is not tooo great in my opinion and naval battles in sengoku japan are a catastrophy. Except for that it sounds great. :)
Heroes unit? I hope Shogun 2 modder friendly.
Neanderthal: Total War.
Really quick to make cos you have a limited technology tree and small unit sizes.
Factions: Homo Neanderthalensis, Homo Sapien Sapien
Emergent factions: The Vulcans (like in Shogun with the Dutch and Portugese they bring new technologies but these technologies can really upset the balance of power).
No <3 for China? I would be pretty ticked if the expansion wasn't China. ITs good they have their heads out of hte clouds. If htey expended all the effort they did for Emperor and Napoleon but focused it more, the game owuld be awesome.
Diadochi: Total War
Might as well just make Rome 2 Total War and have it start 30-50 years earlier. -M
Im still waiting for 1.World war Total war or maybe 2nd. But I guess Computers dont have enough power for simulating a modern war.