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No, you misunderstand. Characters don't age two years per turn but a year per two turns. So character-wise 225 turns are 113 years. And that's not approximately date span 1087 to 1530.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rufus
As I understand it, historical dates are not just hidden behind turn numbers, they are gone.
Well, there may be whole lot of generations there. I am not an expert on medieval history (my limit are the Franks and the Dark Ages), but I do know that the life expectancy among the Franks was 30 years. That means, you get a family member with 14, he lasts for 16 years, that is, 32 turns.
That way, we fit a whole lot of rulers into the game (of course, some factions' leaders would last longer).
[Deviating off-topic] If it is anything like today, low life expectancy primarily reflects high child and especially infant mortality. If you make it to 14[1], you'd be expected to live for much more than 16 years. I'd guess Franks' conditional life expectancy at 15 was 50-60 years.Quote:
Originally Posted by Keba
[1]And more generally, life expectancy figures are for at birth; if you make it to 14, your expected lifetime is higher.
The game will cover a period of history approximating the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Each turn will reflect some subset of this. That’s fine by me. The only way for years and seasons to work is by drastically reducing the timeframe of the campaigns as was done in Shogun. Since a very broad sweep of time is the goal the whole year issue becomes something of an impediment to immersion because it can become a constant reminder that we have deviated a long way from history. And who else but the historically aware notice? I notice and it doesn’t help me to enjoy myself one bit to know that I have conquered Gaul with hastati almost two centuries before Caesar did so with Marian legions.
Consequently, I tend not to pay much attention to the time scale in TW because it usually breaks down at some point or other anyway. Movement rates (either by land or sea) have never consistently made sense. Player triggered events like the Marian Reforms can occur far too early and some historic events such as the Mongol Invasion can be foreseen with clarity. If no one was wearing full plate in 1250 but there we are with plate covered knights, what is the year designation doing for us? What would it add? If the time scale is bound to be distorted why not chuck it altogether? I do wonder how famous battles will be marked. Will they have no year or will they be dropped?
If it were up to me, TW would evolve into a hardcore historic war game/simulator. I realize that it has not and likely never will do this to the degree that I want. As long as M2:TW avoids any stunning omissions or blunders, I’ll expect to have a really good time with it. The year/turn decision is no such mistake IMO.
Now, where are the moats???
Uh, I have given up the attempt to figure out how this turn-years thing in MTW2 system will work, my poor grey cells were approaching the point of self-destruction. Anyway, if it doesn’t work, this issue is related to SP alone, and will be - hopefully - easy to mod.
Yes, where are the moats? :knight:
Personally, I just wish they'd have two modes: Historical and TiVo mode. Historical mode would cover the 500+ years, but do it with 2 turns per year, so 1,000+ turns. Whether anyone wanted to play that many would be up to the player. The TiVo mode would be the one CA seems to be designing, where the 500+ years are covered in 225 6-month-long seasons (so 112 game year turns).
Yeah, moats would be cool.
But you see the "historical"/Wargaming mode would be preffered since anyone playing the other one would be throwned upon...as a brainless RTS fastclicker.Quote:
Originally Posted by Servius1234
Do you know anyone playing on arcade mode?
Hellenes
Well I'm OK with the typical campaign lasting 225 turns, but if characters age a year per two turns, that stretches credulity too much for me, whether the date is on your screen or not. In that case, when your campaign starts with King Beavis IV, your army will have basic spearmen, light cavalry and the like, and your castles will be basic forts. But then just a few generations later, you finish the game with his grandson King Beavis VI, whose armies include full plate-armor clad knights, cannons and pikemen, and whose castles are massive citadels, and whose naval fleet discovered America?Quote:
No, you misunderstand. Characters don't age two years per turn but a year per two turns. So character-wise 225 turns are 113 years. And that's not approximately date span 1087 to 1530.
As I understand it, historical dates are not just hidden behind turn numbers, they are gone.
Yes, that is a step too far in the direction of Age of Empires. A shorter campaign is fine with me, but the characters' lifespan should at least approximate reality, including the pace of historical developments ...
@ hellenes: RTW is (IMO) arcade-mode
@ A.Saturnus: No, it's actually 1 character year = 4 historical years.
1 game turn = 6 game months
2 game turns = 1 game year, which also = 1 character year
MTW2 will span from about 1050-1600, which = 550 historical years. It will span that time in 225 game turns. So...
550 historical years / 225 turns = 2 historical years per turn
So...
1 character year = 2 turns
2 turns = 4 historical years, therefore
1 character year = 4 historical years
.....Erm.......So when my faction heir is 10 he should really be 40?? That does not sound too good to meQuote:
So...
1 character year = 2 turns
2 turns = 4 historical years, therefore
1 character year = 4 historical years
..........Orda
Err, that's what I said...Quote:
Originally Posted by Servius1234
Has CA yet explained why the character years can't be about the same as historical years? I understand the "TiVo" approach and actually can appreciate it because a 225-turn campaign is about right for me based on how much time I can devote to it. Otherwise, a campaign would drag on for months and months of real time ... :dizzy2: But I don't like the thought of the 225-turn campaign spanning only a few generations of characters, especially if those 225 turns are supposed to span all of medieval history "TiVo" style. Can CA pace the characters' lives more realistically and apply the TiVo concept to them too? That way your first king's grandson isn't the one you discover America with or end the game with. What is CA's rationale for two turns = 1 character year?
Hopefully, CA will leave the timescale moddable this time for those whom wish to expand on this idea. Then I could live with it. The Conch of Disputatio would be put away for the time being.
Yaaarrrrrrrr!
diBorgia
450years=14 generations, Medievally speaking!
I fail to see what is so bad about a SP campaign that lasts weeks or even months. Surely that kind of immersion is what constitutes a truly great game?
.......Orda
It's just a matter of personal preference. In my case, I only have time to play maybe 3-5 hours per week, so one 225-turn campaign might take a month. That's fine - that's just long enough to hold my interest. But beyond that, I'm likely to start losing interest in a particular campaign. Playing one campaign at a time, I would hate to think it would take over two years to play all the factions once!Quote:
Originally Posted by Orda Khan
At the same time, I also dislike the RTS games where you rush through entire "historical" eras in a few hours. Hence I think the TW games have struck a good balance, including the 225-turn benchmark being discussed here.
However, for 225 turns to span only a few character-generations, while covering the equivalent of five centuries, stretches credulity too much.
CA - If you're going to TiVo the Middle Ages, at least also TiVo the lifespans of our kings and generals too!
How long does a 255 turn Total War game last?
Judging by the PBMs, I would say 10 years of RTW (20 turns) takes a "normal" person around a week to play. (That is to say, squeezing it in at evenings or weekends). Maybe quicker if it is the early game, but perhaps longer if it is the late game and you are fighting about 3 major battles each turn (see my entry for the Heirs of Alexander PBM).
255 turns sounds ample to me. I suspect the typical MTW PBM was concluded in fewer turns. And they did take weeks, often months.
I understand your situation Rufus, honestly I do. Modern life leaves such little time for ourselves and whatever spare time we get is so precious. This is why I really hope CA consider an 'eras' approach. That being said, the thought of a long, drawn out campaign that makes you feel like you really have achieved something appeals to me more than a Saturday night blitz...and we have the game for keeps, so that means we have years if we please
........Orda
not all of us are deadbeat dad's/husbands. No offense to anyone, but I work 60 hours a week and still have as much time as I want to play the game since I don't have a train of wives and children attached to me. What good are they if they're stopping you from doing what you want to do? lol...
Just kidding of course, but the bottom line is that companies should not be making games with the family in mind. Make the game for those who have time to play it thoroughly...ya know, I would say MOST players are in their mid 20's or so, on average. Any 25 year old who has so many obligations that they can't play more than 3 hours a week obviously was foolish and had kids too early, or doesn't know how to budget their time.
I just don't buy "i don't have time" as a viable reason to alter things that weren't a problem to begin with....
nothing offensive about that post, you might not like it, but it's not breaking any rules...
stop having 4 kids before you're 30 and don't get married to someone who's going to be demanding of your time. Hell, you shouldn't even BE married unless you're 30+ heh. It's 2006, not 1946.
I'm perfectly fine with playing the game only a few hours per week, thank you very much. I'm certainly not lamenting the other areas of my life that consume my time, all of which are far far more important than this computer game. And if you have 20, 30, or whatever hours per week to play on top of your work week, good for you.Quote:
Originally Posted by General4Hire
I wouldn't care if CA made it 2 turns per year like RTW, 1 turn like MTW or 4 per year like STW. I should've said that from the beginning. I'm agnostic on the issue. I'm just saying I don't mind a 225-turn campaign either. But - and this was my more important point - if the game is paced to finish in about 220-250 turns, don't have characters' lifespans consume so many turns that you only go through a few kings' reigns before the entire medieval era has passed by.
If there is enough actual content in a game to hold my interest that long, then I can play for a long time. I've played games like the Baldur's Gate series that took a loooong time to finish, because it's so chock-full of content.Quote:
Originally Posted by Orda Khan
But for most turn-based strategy games, I'm comfortable with winning (or losing) in somewhere around 200-250 turns. Beyond that, I start to get itchy for trying a new game with a different faction, or a different strategy, or a different initial difficulty setting. I managed to finish a Roman campaign in RTW, but about 2/3 of the way through it, I was already itching to try it again as a barbarian faction, and then again as the Seleucids. I guess it's the replayability options that makes me lean towards shorter campaigns.
If I was locked into playing only one faction, then I'd expect a ton of immersive content designed just for that one faction (lots of "atmosphere", backstory etc.).... and then maybe I could get into a 400-500 turn campaign game. It would have to be really good though, and CA isn't that great on providing this level of background immersion. They're better at getting the front-end mechanics down, and then letting the player run with it.
Ideally we'd have a way to do both shorter and longer campaigns, because I know some folks like the longer games. But that's difficult where the map size is locked in (no way to make Europe twice as large, for a longer game), and there are historical constraints on how many factions are in the game. CA had to pick one campaign length, and they're going for 225 (average) turns.
Where they blew it, was trying to cover too long a timeperiod. That's what's causing all these head-scratching disconnects between character aging, seasons, and dates. It should have been split into several eras, or a main game and an expansion pack for the race to the New World.
Actually the median age at the Org hovers around the 30+ mark.
As for my wife... I got RTW as last years Valentines present from her... with a contract for 5 hours of gameplay per week. :balloon2:
I thought the relation between character aging and turns was about right in MTW (1 year of character age=1 turn). Your kings can have a fair whack, but are definitely mortal and, unless they inherit young, to some extent have to be in a hurry.
STW (1 year = 4 turns) was way too slow for my taste - you basically had two or three leaders for the whole game, so managing your family and the succession was not really a feature of the game. But I'm currently playing that system in EB, so may be it will be ok (EB has lots of fun traits etc to add to the mix).
RTW and M2TWs relation of 1 year of age = 2 turns means the turnover is still a little slow IMO. For example, in PBM, players typically did not want the ordeal of a full reign and so we switched to 20 turn stints, which led to the PBMs losing a lot of their appeal (playing out an entire reign meant you could really get into character and was more meaningful). But for single player purposes, I suspect I won't notice it too much.
If it is easy to mod, I'd probably do it though.
I must say I'm not sure why characters have to live so long anyhow. Let's say your average general has 50 years worth of campaigning in him - two years per turn would give him a "lifespan" of only 25 turns. But is 25 turns so bad? Heck, I usually had RTW well and truly beat by turn 25.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rufus
Certainly I think 50 turns would be more than adequate for a general. That would mean he aged one year every two turns instead of one year every four.
CA are effectively giving you generals for 100 turns. That seems far too generous to me. At that rate every general will end up a 10-star general - especially given the accelerated promotion that we had in RTW.
Companies make games to make a profit. In order to do that they have to sell games. Most people put other things in their life ahead of gaming while also buying quite a few games. It would be foolish to ignore them and cater to the wishes of a few 'hardcore' gamers.Quote:
Originally Posted by General4Hire
Depends on how you look at it. Certainly a larger percentage of teenagers than of 40+ people will play games. But people in their late thirties tend to have more money to spend than teenagers. AFAIK the just-below-thirty demographic is the main target group for game magazines. Kids might game more, they aren't spending as much, and in the end, it's all about da Benjamins.Quote:
Originally Posted by General4Hire
Well, I'm 23, I play about ten hours a week (when I'm in a gaming mood, i can go long stretches without playing anything), I also have a social life, a girlfriend and an afterhours cooking class to spend my time on. I have no regrets, there is more to life than games, which doesn't mean they don't have their place in it.Quote:
Originally Posted by General4Hire
Different people have different desires, and want different things out of life. I know people that started having kids when they were 20 and people who happily live without children, I know people who play games and people who football and people who play both, I know people working 60+ hours a week for the money, I know people working 60+ hours a week just because they like it...Quote:
Originally Posted by General4Hire
All that said: I'd prefer 1y per turn ageing :laugh4:
That can't be right. When I read a PC Game magazine it always appears as if written for teens with a focus on fireballs, big guns, etc. Only when the game is aiming for realism and accuracy is the review writting more mature. With the PC Gamer review having in bold letters: ELEPHANT MOUNTED CANNONS, then you know what time it is.Quote:
AFAIK the just-below-thirty demographic is the main target group for game magazines.
Sounds like forums...Quote:
Originally Posted by Duke John
Agreed... And we can all agree that people of that age are a bit more likely to not want, what we usually call ADD games here. Also, they tend to be fairly adaptive, and the TW style of games is just what these people like.Quote:
Originally Posted by doc_bean
To me it sounds like they are in fact perfect customers for TW games. Complexity in battles and some strategic aspect and they will love it. But like any grownup they will not like being guided around, or have too simple games.
Makes one wonder about M2.
Good point. Economically the hardcore gamer is probably not that much more important to game publishers/developers than the casual gamer. In either case, the gamer is only buying one copy of the game, in all likelihood. So it matters little to them whether you play it 1 hour per week or 40.Quote:
Companies make games to make a profit. In order to do that they have to sell games. Most people put other things in their life ahead of gaming while also buying quite a few games. It would be foolish to ignore them and cater to the wishes of a few 'hardcore' gamers.
Of course, hardcore gamers might be more likely to buy more (different) games than casual gamers, but maybe not. If you're playing one game 40 hours per week, I doubt there's much time to play another game, no matter hardcore you are!
The point is they can't cater too much to the hardcore gamer market.
It's not a question of time for me. I have plenty of time to play games, but I went from playing Total War multiplayer 40+ hours a week to not playing at all. The reason is that with the transition from MTW MP to RTW MP multiplayer became not worth playing. It wasn't just me who quit. Almost everyone in my clan quit. I switched to RTW SP, but when the load/save behavior was uncovered, I stopped playing that as well. The gameplay has to reach a certain standard of quality to be worth spending the time and effort playing it.
Concerning the change to abstracted, turn based gameplay. Why stop at 2 time periods per turn? You could have multiple time periods per turn: one for character aging, a different one for movement distance, a different one for the economic model, a different one for the tech tree development and a different one for historical events all represented by a single turn. That way you could optimize all these phases to a campaign length of 225 turns.
Didn't the Civ game series prove that the so called average gamer doesn't care if a spearmen can beat a tank?
Meh, that's close to an urban legend. I never experienced that in Civ2 nor Civ4 (I despised Civ3).Quote:
Originally Posted by Puzz3D
Civ4 actually has a surprisingly good combat model - I enjoy it (Civ2s combat was rather yuck). Experience gives you promotions with which to customise units (e.g. make infantry Anti-tank specialists). There is a pretty decent - and historically flavoured - rock/paper/scissors gameplay. There's also a tension between concentrating your forces - which ensures you can get good combined arms - and dispersing to avoid artillery/air bombardment. The animations make the whole thing great fun.
And - back to topic - they manage the trade-off between quantity and quality very well. For example, a WW2 style infantry unit will lose to a WW2 style tank. Maybe even two such infantry units will. But gradually, the tank will be worn down and be killable. In terms of gameplay, it seems finely judged.
Sure, a spear unit could kill a very depleted tank but you are very unlikely to experience that - the AI gets an enormous discount on upgrading its army, so it tends to have the best stuff for its tech (and I guarantee you, it will not have spear tech when you have tanks); and the player would be a schmuck to try to take on AI tanks with spearmen. It was hard enough when I tried to stop them without oil (ie with infantry and marines).