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http://totalwardev.blogspot.com/
Some major heads-up for all the folks out there complaining about stupid AI, fast kill rates and ridicolous movement rates degenerating the game into a clickfest. The best news I've heard so far regarding Medieval 2: Total War. :2thumbsup:
Site seems to be down at the moment but hopefully it will be up in a few minutes.
Cheers!
Ituralde
It's down yes, Shogun hopes to get it back online somewhere today
Damnation!! Now I really want to read it :laugh4:
well its back up. just scroll down a bit.
Good news then, seeing the ai use a proper tactic :)
I hope they removed the ai behaviour which made it send units under fire to auto attack the units shooting at them, easiest way to break up an ai army in rtw. esp phalanx`s.
:2thumbsup:Quote:
With slower combat speeds and greater control, strategy now plays a bigger part in battles.
Maybe screwtype and Puzz can shed light on what...
"As a little teaser I must mention unit sizes! For those that have played TW since STW you will know what the magic numbers are and should be really be happy to see them make a return in M2TW."
...means.
Now I'm curious. Who might that be?Quote:
I must send out a big thank you to all the players that have spent time with me discussing their wants and needs for AI and combat. For the last few months QAOZ has been in contact with a few of the veteran players that have been playing TW games for years.
The bits about speed and battles being more about tactics sound promising.
Unit sizes have traditionally been 60 (normal), 80 (large) and 120 (huge).
Rome had smaller units on default and used different steps to large and huge.
I guess that means that a default unit will have 60 soldiers.
Sounds really, really promising :2thumbsup:
60 men units on normal size. Almost all units had that size (2 had 12 and one had 1 and 2 of those units came in MI).Quote:
Originally Posted by AussieGiant
The cav didn't have a smaller sizes in STW right? :inquisitive: Too long since I played it.
Yes, I think you are right. You can see the Portugese and Turkish roster on two of these screenshots:Quote:
Originally Posted by R'as al Ghul
http://www.g4mers.com/screenshots.as...&type=1&page=5
On normal, it seems you have:
60 - basic infantry
48 - archers + good infantry
32 - cavalry + dismounted cav
16 - general's unit + artillery
The Turks also have a 24 and even a 16 sized infantry unit (the latter maybe naptha?). They lack any 32 sized dismounted cav (their one 32 sized unit does not seem to be dismounted cav whereas the 24 sized one might concievably be).
I can't quite recall how the unit sizes scale up on large, which is my preferred setting.
IIRC, in MTW, you had 100 for basic infantry and 60 for good infantry, cavalry was 40 and I think generals' units did not actually scale up, making them less important in larger scale campaigns.
In RTW the higher settings double the unit size for each step, i.e. a unit that has 60 men (officers not included) on default will have 120 on large and 240 on huge. The MTW, and I think the STW system too, are slightly different in their scaling factors. I can´t say I prefer one system over the other, and we´ll see how it´ll turn out in MTW2
Ok, but what does he mean by "Magic numbers".
What do they do? I get the impression it is some type of "balancing" issue, but I really have no idea.
Glad to hear about the AI, and it proves that what I experienced at the demo probably wasn't a fluke, but really built into the AI.
Even though I played from Shogun, I'm not sure what he means with the unit sizes and 'magic numbers'. I wasn't really bothered with the changes in unit sizes in Rome.
More important is how hard it is to handle units on the screen, I couldn't play huge and even large sometimes lagged me a bit, so in Rome it's normal for me. But we'll just have to see.
In STW all types of units had the same number of men (except for yout daimyo).
Well I guess the post is impressive although i have to say that im still very unsure. As far as the AI goes i really wont believe anything until I have the game in my hands and i see it happen. Ill probably play my first game on hardest difficulty and if i am defeated by the computer then ill proceed to laugh out loud and fall in love with the game.
It sounds promising but it's still a 'wait and see' for me. Another side of this AI behaviour may be being forced to chase horse archers who wont retreat round and round the map in a futile attempt to catch them.
Maybe if we're lucky the demo will ship with a limited custom battle feature so we can actually see how well the AI fights without the help of all those historical battle scripts.
The ai is improved.
Another good blog - very promising stuff.
"Regarding combat the user must now get more involved, “Ctrl-A’’ double click wont be good enough. It’s back to the days of maintaining lines and issuing orders on the way to battle. Gone are the days of the AI determining what are the best targets and the user having to continually try and drag them out of unwanted combat. With slower combat speeds and greater control, strategy now plays a bigger part in battles."
That just made my day!
:medievalcheers: M2TW is gonna rock hard.:thrasher:
Reluctant to get too carried away before playing the actual game, but this is absolutely fantastic news. Now all we need is someone to port RTW to to M2TW engine....or maybe that's the missing RTW 1.7 and 1.8 that sit before Alexander?
OMG! The hell on earth.Quote:
Originally Posted by Barbarossa82
yes me likey th ai but lets just see what happens if i charge them forward head on will it be sucdail
A developer blog mentioning AI. Remember to take a pinch of salt with you before clicking on the link.
Bear in mind that a developer's blog is likely to be on the biased side. It's all part of the marketing and they're not exactly going to berate the AI now are they...
Still, at least they're putting their money where their mouth is and being up-front. If the AI doesn't do exactly what it says on the tin when it arrives, then they won't have lived up to their promises.
I agree caution is needed, but the mere fact that a developer acknowledges that slower and more cohesive combat is a selling feature to be promoted bodes well. They could have slowed down RTW with every patch they brought out but they chose not to. Even if the MTW AI isn't as great as they make it sound at least this time they appear to be aiming at it, rather than writing it off as a niche concern.
And they are giving straight examples of situations. It's not a gamble what they mean, they describe in detail a situation (in this case a skirmisher army) where the AI improved. I don't think there is a better way to make clear statements about what's possible.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jambo
And like you said, if it isn't in the end game, they'll be branded liars, so chances of it being untrue is very, very small.
I'm still not sure about the 'magic number' units, because like Econ21 pointed out , there are already screenshots that prove that unit sizes won't be one single number. So maybe they changed the ratio's a bit, but that doesn't sound like me as 'magic', but more like 'balancing'. Personally I'd be happier if there was a distinction between unit sizes (like the screenshots prove). Oh well.
"To say I was impressed is an understatement, I think I called the replay “Golly gosh” well to be honest it wasn’t that politically correct but you get the idea."
"Golly gosh"? Vat iz zat? :inquisitive: Well if he was impressed, that raises some hope!
And... I might be wrong, but he said something about a... replay? We'll have the option to record battles?
Custom battle replays were savable in Rome, weren't they?
The numbers I remember from MTW were 100 for most defensive infantry (spears, pikes) and peasants, 60 for most offensive infantry (swords, axes, polearms, etc) and missile units, 40 for cavalry, 20 for royal cavalry, and 12 for special units like hashishin or naptha throwers. There were obviously a few exceptions (muwahid foot soldiers (an offensive spear unit) and gothic seageants come to mind).
Looking at the Portugeuse units, it looks like the ratios are similar (at a smaller unit size). Respectively, 60, 48, 32, 16, (no special units). Biggest difference is that it looks like the javelin type units are in the large, defensive infantry and peasant category rather than the offensive and missile category. All the 32-men infantry are probably dismounted cavalry (just like foot knights in the first game).
The Turkish units hold up to this theory, with similar unit sizes. Again, there are differences - naffatun are 16 instead of 12, and there's that curious 24-man unit. I doubt they're dismounted anything (as there's no corresponding 24-man cavalry unit). My guess is that they're a new take on hashishin, losing the bows but getting a larger size unit. I imagine they're much like arcani from RTW. It also looks like they have one or two regular javelin units (the guys with their arms up) at the 48-man size like most missile units, and a 32-man size one. I imagine the 32-man unit is dismounted cavalry, and maybe the 60-size javelin unit the Portugeuse have is more of a peasant unit. 48 is probably the standard javelin size.
All good points, Barbarossa. I naturally still have my doubts as to whether the battle speeds have been slowed down enough, but I'm glad they're at least touting slower battles speeds as being a good thing.Quote:
Originally Posted by Barbarossa82
As for the AI, we can only wait and hope that it's been vastly improved. It is somewhat encouraging they're actually talking about it, however. It's nice to see them acknowleding its importance to the fans.
Wow, I totally missed that! I hope that means we can now save our campaign battles like in the original MTW; that would be very happy. :2thumbsup:Quote:
Originally Posted by Vlad Tzepes
Same here :2thumbsup:Quote:
Originally Posted by Martok
:balloon2:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Martok
Well he started off by saying this was a custom game and you could always save custom battles, so nothing new there...
I know that many out there have pretty exacting standards, but it would not have taken all that much to improve the battles in RTW. The mods do half of it already with speed, stat and morale tweaks. Simple things like getting the AI to maintain a formation and make intelligent decisions as to when to attack and when to retreat and keeping the commander safe would have made a very large impact into the game. (Note I mean simple in concept, not necessarily in code)
What I mean is that RTW would have been way better with a few little improvements in the battle AI so if they have made big steps in improving the battle AI, well I am pretty excited...
I'll be very happy if the AI now uses its forces intelligently. Slower combat speeds also sound great.
Now don't you go ruining my optimism. ~;p We want saved replays for campaign battles! Let's hear it!Quote:
Originally Posted by Bob the Insane
Indeed. If Rome's AI had been able to at least follow some of the simpler aspects of battle, I think most people's opinion of it would have been much more favorable. I really hope they've fixed the AI in Medieval 2 so it doesn't make as many blatantly bone-headed mistakes.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bob the Insane
The magic number for unit size in the original battle engine was 60. When that was coupled with the 1 second combat cycle and a chance to kill that nominally ranged between 0.5% (NI vs NI) and 10% (ND vs ND), you got frontal combat resolution times ranging from 3 minutes to 30 seconds. You also got predictable results vs melee and missle combat factors within a reasonable degree of uncertainty. With a 20% advantage in melee combat factor (1 point) you could expect to win 6 out of 10 times, and with a 40% advantage (2 points) you could expect to win 9 out of 10 times.
MTW introduced variable unit size. Although it still ranges around the 60 man size, it makes balancing harder because of the fixed 20% step in melee combat factor (The steps in RTW are apparently 10% which is better). Combat factor has to be used to compensate for the disadvantage suffered by smaller units vs larger units due to multiple attacks on individual men, and it's not a linear relationship. I remember Tosa and I tried to balance 100 man yari ashigaru units in STW/MI against the rest of the 60 man units, and we weren't successful to the degree necessary to ensure balanced gameplay. Variable unit size also complicates balancing ranged units because the ranged unit's overall effectiveness on a target will vary depending on the size of the target unit.
Also, in RTW artillery apparently gets the same number of kills regardless of the size of the target unit which doesn't mesh well with the morale system, if it's similar to the system used in STW/MTW, which applied a morale penalty based on the percentage of men in the unit killed in a combat cycle.
I think it's important to use the original game, STW, as the standard of comparison when you talk about playbalance and gameplay. If MTW is used, you have the situation where, although improved, M2TW could still be inferior in terms of playbalance to CA's original standard, and if you use RTW as the basis, inferior in not only playbalance but overall gameplay (missing features in the engine) as well.
In terms of AI, it's certainly a big improvement to have the AI wait until it has used it's ammo and then charge forward as a whole army rather than use piecemeal attacks where a unit goes forward only to decide that was a mistake and turns around and walks back to its lines. If you don't have a strong rock, paper, scissors battle system, then making individual unit matchups isn't as important. However, the AI is still going to be predictable unless it varies its strategy for similar situations the way a human would. Original STW had an AI that varied its strategy over about 3 different choices for the same initial battle situation.
Hear, Hear !Quote:
Originally Posted by Martok
:balloon2:
I can't for the life of me remember where it was, but there was a developer somewhere saying replays of campaign battles was being considered. Must add my voice to those hoping they'll be included.
Blog is interesting, but AI before release is always suspect; particularly in FPS, where a hyped-up AI turns out to be simple, predictable scripting. The explanation from Puzz3D on the magic numbers is interesting too, definitely a step forward for particularly multiplayer if results are consistant.
Thanks for the vote of confidence AG but I'm really just an opinionated casual gamer. There are heaps of guys who know more about TW than me. I'm not even in the same league as Puzz, TW-wise - he's the real deal.Quote:
Originally Posted by AussieGiant
But since you asked - I really have no idea what is meant by this sentence, perhaps they mean a return to classical TW sizes, ie 60/80/100/120 men per unit or something.
I think in STW you only had a unit of 10 heavy cav for the general didn't you?Quote:
Originally Posted by econ21
Mind you, those 10 heavy cav still came in pretty handy...
Actually that happened sometimes in Shogun. If you only had foot units, you would chase the horse archers around the map getting peppered until your footsoldiers got exhausted, then the HA would charge and route your forces.Quote:
Originally Posted by SpencerH
I thought it was quite realistic actually. That's what should happen if you try to run down HA with footsoldiers...
Quote:
Originally Posted by screwtype
I'm not discussing the tactics of a HA army v foot army. I'm taliking about after I've obliterated the AI standing army but one or two (usually) HA units refuse to retreat off the map and must be chased endlessly round and round. I've even 'lost' battles in this fashion.
I know it happened in Shogun, MTW, and RTW. Isnt it about time it was fixed. I'm not saying this will contribute to the problem BTW, I'm just pointing out the possibility. Given that the tone of the article suggests that the author was pleased and surprised by the AI behaviour I have to wonder if there hasnt been sufficient playtesting.
Actually, I don't think it did happen in Shogun. STW had what has been called "Benny Hill" code, whereby a unit that repeatedly tried to evade combat would eventually rout. It's not there in RTW, so you can win a (timed) defensive battle with only one cavalry unit if you have taken out the enemy cav.Quote:
Originally Posted by SpencerH
Well, it often does take a while to find faults. But IMO this issue is pretty trivial in the grand scheme of things. Certainly not the key factor to decide if M2TW has better AI than RTW.Quote:
Given that the tone of the article suggests that the author was pleased and surprised by the AI behaviour I have to wonder if there hasnt been sufficient playtesting.
Did anyone else get caught in Rome, usually always with an Egyptian army that when you defeat 99% of it there's one chariot left who runs around for bloody ages and you end up chasing it around and around the battlezone.
I hope the battle AI is fixed up so that should this happen in MTW2 that this unit catches a grip and runs for the hills when faced by about 500 men.
I think Palamedes is speaking from a multiplayer perspective when he talks about magic numbers for unit sizes.Quote:
Originally Posted by screwtype
In STW multiplayer, the default size was 60 men and the consensus was that that offered the best balance between fighting and maneuverability, although, cavalry was considered to be a bit cumbersome at that size because the maps were small and if one man in the cav unit caught the edge of an enemy unit the whole cav unit got drawn into a fight with that unit.
In MTW, the default was cav = 40 men, most non-spear inf = 60 men and spears = 100 men. The 40 man cav helps maneuverability and the 100 man spears helps with the rank bonus, but overall it's still based around the 60 man size. We can see in Samurai Wars for MTW/VI that maneuvering 60 man cav units isn't as much of a problem on large maps, and that 60 man size means the cavalry retains its usefulness for more encounters than do 40 man units. Also, after STW, you could disengage cavalry from a fight.
In RTW, the default seemed to be based around a 40 man unit size, and there was no way to get it to 60 because the next size was x2. The perception by many veterans at the time was that the default size of 40 was causing the fast routing in multiplayer and that 60 was preferable while 80 would reduce maneuverabliity too much. Gil Jaysmith posted that the solution to fast routing was to play at huge unit size which made him seem oblivious to the importance of maneuverability to the gameplay. Huge setting can also reduce multiplayer fps a lot.
I can understand wanting to cover a wider range of unit size than the factor of 2 that 60/80/100/120 provides. However, why were the steps made larger when all you have to do is increase the number of steps? Increasing the size of the steps demonstrates an insensitivity toward providing multiplayers the kind of control over game parameters that they need to improve playbalance. You can also see this in the on/off nature of the morale, fatigue and ammo settings, and further in the condensing of what were once 3 separately controlled parameters into a single on/off setting. You also see this in the removal of separate money settings for attacker and defender, and the reduction of the money settings to discrete values in RTW v1.0. It wouldn't matter if CA balanced the game well to begin with, but they didn't. Multiplayers were left not only with an unbalanced game, but no way to improve it either. The money setting was changed back to a continuously variable amount in RTW v1.2, and M2TW apparently restores separate money setting for each team. However, the game mechanic simplifications in the new battle engine are apparently still there. Magic unit sizes aren't going to fix that, and those numbers would change anyway with the new engine. What's important is having the units and armies fight long enough for flanking tactics to be employed, and for those flanking tactics to be effective unless the idea is to have a shoot and rush type of gameplay.
You could be timed out while chasing cav in Shogun too. Actually as I was writing this I was thinking of chasing mounted crossbowmen and being timed out. Hmmmm, that doesnt fit!Quote:
Originally Posted by econ21
In any case, I dont think it's a big deal either. I'm just pointing out that without other AI improvements to prevent the 'infinite chase sequence' this seemingly positive change could have unforseen repercussions.
Yes, but that was only for the human player as I recall. The AI could avoid combat as long as it liked and not rout.Quote:
Originally Posted by econ21
Yeah, that could be a problem, but the solution was to have a unit of Yari cav of your own to deal with those pesky horsemen.Quote:
Originally Posted by SpencerH
You're right it could be annoying, but since it's something that could be avoided with proper preparation, I don't see that it was such a big deal. To me, the occasional mismatch of armies just added to variety and the imponderables of battle, but it's different strokes for different folks I guess.
Well regardless of what he meant, I agree that the 60-man unit size seemed much more appropriate than the 40 man default in RTW. Also those silly odd numbers for cav were rather annoying in RTW. So I'd welcome a return to the 60 man default size if that's what occurring.Quote:
Originally Posted by Puzz3D
I never played RTW much above the default size, because quite frankly I didn't like the game much and by the time I got a system capable of handling larger sizes, I had lost interest. So I don't remember what the actual larger sizes were, only that there was no 60-man size you could play which was annoying. But I liked the 20-man increment in unit sizes we had in STW and I saw no reason as you say to have larger increments in RTW.
RTW in general was remarkably lacking in settings for a game of that sophistication. Compare it, for example, to Imperialism II, a modest little strategy game that nevertheless has a very large number of difficulty settings from anywhere between 100 or less to 400. Or to the Panzer General series which again has a great many different settings the gamer can tweak to his desires. Give us more choices please CA!
One of the nice things about playing RTW on huge was that it actually made the republic era cohorts the correct size, 160 men (two centries stood next to each other).
Also the phallanx units looked better with large numbers and the masses of men simply looked right on the ancient battlefield...
And unlike MTW it did not take twice as long to build huge units. I remember trying huge in MTW but I did not like the doubled recruitment times nor how unweldly everything got on the battlefield.
I wonder how MTW2 will play?
I agree with you. In my opinion they developed RTW with huge units size, but while testing they recognized, that the graphic engine cannot handle enough men. So they shrinked the size to 20 men units :( Therefore huge unit size looks better than normal.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bob the Insane
lol Puzz, the yari ashigaru balancing discussions... man those were a real headache.
one minute :idea2:, next minute :no:
An annoying thing with RTW default (or even large) settings is that you can end up having a handful of men still in the fight if they manage to avoid annihilation by any cav giving chase. In earlier games of the series that was the exception for logical morale settings. Sure, you could end up with that odd cav or 10 inf men, but not so often as to hurt any suspension of disbelief.
Hey screwtype,Quote:
Originally Posted by screwtype
Well, your opinions seems well thought out and accurate to me.
Certainly Puzz is "Yoda like" when it comes to the whole topic, but your always on the mark, or very near it.
I've been off-line a bit so, it seems Puzz has given us the explanation on this page of the thread.
Modesty prevents me from an outright endorsement of your views, so let's just say you are obviously an individual of superior tastes ~;)Quote:
Originally Posted by AussieGiant
In MTW, there is a global morale penalty for level of decimation of the army. It helps prevent a battle from being dragged out by a handful of units which have suffered heavy casualties. I don't know the level of decimation at which this penalty is incurred. I don't think this penalty was in STW because all units routed towards the original entry point on the map so it's much easier to chase off a defeated army. MTW introduced routing away from the threat which makes it a lot harder to mop up after a battle, and I think that's why the level of decimation penalty was introduced.Quote:
Originally Posted by L'Impresario
LOL. Classic comment.Quote:
Originally Posted by screwtype
Puzz, just how much time have you spent on this whole "Thing". By "thing" I mean, how do you know so much?
And are you a professional gamer?
I'm an electrical engineer. As part of my job, I did Monte Carlo simulations on scintillation detectors coupled to phototubes through light guides for a couple of years which involves using computer generated random numbers and mathematical models to simulate the light distribution from an array of scintillation detectors onto an array of phototubes, and then use a maximum liklihood algorithm on the phototube outputs to determine from which detector the light originated. I'm also a chess player with a 2000 USCF rating. I went from playing competitive chess for about 25 years to playing Shogun Total War online in Oct 2000. I was intrigued by STW's use of a statistical model to simulate combat, the emphasis the game put on tactics, coordinating units of various types and protecting your daimyo ala chess, and the prospect of playing as a team which chess lacks. I was amazed at how well the system worked, and LongJohn should be justly proud of developing the battle system. I've also been on four CA beta teams, and don't ask me about that because CA NDA's never expire.Quote:
Originally Posted by AussieGiant
Shogun was incredibly well balanced, but there was a bug in the cavalry charge which I only recently became aware of when developing the Samurai Wars unit stats for Barocca's STWmod for MTW/VI when ShingenKrypta and I went back and ran some online tests in original STW. There is an unofficial guide on IGN published back in 2000 with a chart Shogun Guide that clearly shows that Heavy Cav was supposed to defeat Warrior Monks. Due to the bugged cav charge which made cav behave more like mounted infantry, HC wasn't very effective against WM, and this lead to the infamous monk rush which was the only really serious problem with the online game. Expert players have claimed they could regularly defeat the monk rush. Unfortunately, although original STW had the capability to save replays using a commandline option, CA didn't reveal how to do it at the time, so no battles from those days exist today.
Back then I remember many players asking, "Why did my units run away?". Very little was known about the morale system and CA wasn't talking. We did know the unit stats from the Official Strategy Guide and a couple of online guides, but not the projectile stats. None of these parameters were in external text files in original STW like they are now. Since I had two computers on a LAN, I started designing tests to figure out the morale system. I determined the numerical transistion points of impetuous, steady, uncertain, wavering and routing. Then I was able to geometrically determine what constituted a flank, how close a unit had to be to inflict a flanking morale penalty, the size of that penalty and where you had to position a unit so that covering a flank cancelled the penalty. I discovered the cause of the Benny Hill effect, and this was confirmed by LongJohn. I also determined the size of the outnumbering morale penalty, that only the number of enemy banners within a certain radius contributed to it, that the size of the penalty diminished with the total number, that it had a maximum cutoff value of 3 banners and that it didn't matter if the enemy units were hidden. I measured the size and range of the morale effect of friendly units rout, the supporting effect of the general and the effect of the general dying (-8 morale) or leaving the field (no effect on morale). I measured the morale effect of being on higher ground, the morale penalty for being disrupted, the penalties from being targetted by archers and guns, and observed the hysteresis in the morale system. I went on to measure fatigue rates for walking, running and fighting and different weather conditions vs armor, the loss of accuracy for archers in light, medium and heavy rain and the misfire rate of guns in light, medium and heavy rain. Kraellin's map, Ranges, was instrumental in being able to repeat the tests at precise ranges. Later after MI was out and the parameters were in external files, I measured the effectiveness of archers and guns vs armor rating and power rating, and the ratio of kills in units adjacent to the targetted unit. I determined the ballistics of guns, and around this time LongJohn confirmed a lot of my measurement and revealed the chance to kill algorithm. I also discovered that the cause of the strange gameplay in WE/MI multiplayer was a +12 morale being added to all units. This was later confirmed by CA, and they removed it in the v1.01 patch to WE/MI. I believe that our interest in the game mechanics influenced LongJohn to write those two fine chapters about teh game mechanics in tehe Official MTW Strategy Guide. However with RTW, CA has closed the door on that.
I know some players discovered things about the game and kept it to themselves to use to advantage in multiplayer games. Since I was a chess player and that game is played with both players knowing all the rules of play, I always posted at the org everything I discovered about the game. I don't ascribe to the idea of keeping information about the game mechanics secret for personal advantage in a multiplayer battle. From my experience playing chess, I know that mastering tactics is the lowest level of playing the game. Once players have mastered the tactics, the gameplay rises to a strategic level and that's when it becomes really interesting especially in a game such as STW where teamplay is possible. The plethora of units and factions and upgrades (STW only had honor upgrades) places too much emphasis on buying the best units with the best upgrades which robs the multiplayer gameplay not only of its strategic potential, but even it's tactical potential. The fast gamespeed, lack of options and loss of battle engine features in the current incarnation of Total War takes the game further down that road and away from the outstanding accomplishment in terms of gameplay that original STW achieved.
Currently I don't do any testing on RTW/BI because I don't think the new engine warrants the time and effort to do those tests.
:bow: :bow: :bow:
The graphic engine has no issues with enough men.Quote:
they recognized, that the graphic engine cannot handle enough men
Most peoples PCs have issues with handling enough men (but it doesn't take that much PC to handle Huge size, I handled it with a 2.2ghz single core with 1GB ram & a 9800np GPU, though it chugged on the bigger battles)
PS: Puzz = legend.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Puzz3D
I think they have this in RTW, at least during a custom battle that I had as good as won I noted one still intact enemy unit (most of the rest where routing off the feild at this point) had a morale level of Steady with the note "dismayed at the loss of the battle".
Now the note usually refers to whatever morale bonus or penalty the unit is experiencing at the time and this note seems to indicate some form of global "we lost" morale penalty...
Quote:
Originally Posted by screwtype
I'm not sure if its my writing or your reading, but I am talking about my (usually) winded cavalry chasing winded AI cav round and round the map edges. It is not something that can be "avoided with proper preparation" (although it can be dealt with in the battle with a blocking force to cause the AI cav to slow and be caught of course).
That was a nice read, good to know you a little better. Monte Carlo simulations imply you know a thing or two about statistical physics and explains why you're strong with numbers. I'm sure you could re-test the RomeTW or MTW2 engine if you wanted to and find those numbers again.Quote:
Originally Posted by Puzz3D
Even with a game like STW, with only a limited number of units, balancing turns out to be difficult. But an army is only broken if it doesn't have a counterarmy. In RTW, the all-cav place-them-on-top-of-each-other army seems invincible, but I'm sure that that army will no longer be possible in MTW2. What other options of unbalance are there?
- spears/swords/cav/archers too strong
- 2 out of 4 too strong (MTW, 8 men-at-arms and 8 knights)
- none of them too strong (STW, though monks can be nasty)
I don't know MTW2 will turn out in advance, but I hope every army has a counterarmy.
More important is more clever AI however. Perfect balance may lead to chess and a discovery of new numbers, but perfect AI makes you playing the campaing game for a long time. Multiplayer would be better with balance, singleplayer with AI.
I would aim to perfect one before trying to perfect the other.
Hmm, I must say I've never experienced this problem. That has certainly never happened to me in Shogun - my Yari cav always chases down the enemy, LOL - and I can't recall it ever occurring in MTW or RTW either. Spear cav can usually catch HA pretty easily in my experience. Have you tried, say, not clicking on the HA, but clicking on the ground past them, or to one side of them and then wheeling round to get them before they start retreating?Quote:
Originally Posted by SpencerH
I wont say that it's exceedingly common in RTW but it's happened enough times to be of note. A typical situation for me will be a fairly open battlefield with AI HA or light cav moving forward against my flanks followed by a line of AI inf units. The inf battle usually requires almost all of my attention once they are engaged because of the ridiculous battle speeds. Therefore, my counter to the AI cav is to simply to 'click attack' with my cav and get back to the inf battle.
Fast forward to the end of the battle ...
Most enemy units have routed and have left the battle field but 1 unit (usually) of winded AI cav remains pursued by whatever winded cav I have left. I have watched them chase such a unit round the battle square 3 times. Adding additional units to the chase usually does nothing since they will simply join in the game of 'follow the leader'. Perhaps pausing and clicking on the ground might do it but given the lag that occurs after orders, I doubt it and if they didnt catch them at that point they'd be even further behind with the lag after new orders.
Hi Puzz,
Great post and thanks for the indepth explanation of how you have been involved over the years.
I gotta say, you do scare me...but in a good way :laugh4:
I really don't think MTWII will be as pure and as well done as Shogun when it comes to AI and balancing, but I do hope that they put enough thought and balancing into this version for it to be able to stand as a good game by itself.
Comparison's are always dangerous and rarely fair but I get the impression that MTWII will stand a head taller than everything that has gone before...but still look up to the oldest brother of them all...Brother Shogun, "the number one son, in the family".
:2thumbsup:
The chasing of skirmisher cavalry round the 4 corners of the battle maps in RTW was one of the most tedious aspects of the game. For that reason alone I always hated fighting against those factions which had loads of horse archer units, e.g. Persia.
In Shogun there wasn't this problem since horse archers weren't the fastest cavalry. Yari's could and would catch them making them not the irritating omnipotent nuisance that they are in Rome. I can only hope that M2TW, with its newly introduced "impassable terrain", will prevent similar ridiculous escapades chasing skirmishing horse units round the 4 corners of the battle maps...
Really? Consider this:Quote:
Originally Posted by AussieGiant
The melee battle mechanic has been changed between the older STW/MTW battle engine and the new RTW/BI battle engine. In the old engine, multiple attacks occured within a combat cycle with death resolved at the end of the cycle. Each man could strike once and parry multiple times within a single combat cycle. A man had 8 sides, so could in theory be attacked 8 times with combat bonuses applied if the strike came from the side or back. Since each man got to strike before death was determined, two men could kill each other, and I've seen this happen. This is important to playbalance because the outcome of combat is not biased by an arbitrary determination of who strikes first. I've tested 60 man units many times in STW, and it's extremely rare for equally matched units to come back to win once getting behind by a 15% deficit in men which is 10 men.
This mechanic was change in RTW. You can see by observation that the strike and counterstrike are now taking place in two different combat cycles. The man who strikes first is getting an advantage. I'd like to know how first strike is being determined because it makes a difference. I have observed the same man getting to strike twice before his oppenent strikes back, so maybe there's been an attempt to mitigate the first strike advantage. However, I'm not sure the double strike is necessarily going to the man who was struck first. Even if it's a randomized effect, it's going to contribute to uncertainty in the combat results.
I just ran two tests in RTW of three 122 cohorts fighting three 122 man cohorts. These units are perfectly balanced against each other, but the combat resulted in a very lopsided win for one side. For example, the second test resulted in 291 kills for one side vs 128 kills for the other out of a total os 367 men on each side. This wasn't the result of killing routers. Does the concept of balancing have any meaning when the uncertainty is that high? Does it make sense to spend time and energy trying to master such a game?
Multiple attacks are retained by not allowing a man who is engaged to turn and face a second attack from the side or rear. I'm not sure if I've seen triple attacks, but I may have. It seems to me that the old engine was a better simulation of combat, and it had several features that enhanced that further which have been lost in the new engine. The lower level of uncertainty in the combat model rewarded a well executed battleplan, and there was more depth to the tactics because small advantages weren't swamped out by the random factors. You could actually accumulate small tactical advantages over the course of a battle, and it paid off. The accumulation of small advantages is a basic concept in the game of chess. There is concern now that the finishing moves are going to further denegrate the combat model as a simulation of hand-to-hand fighting.
Officially Considered Puzz...
...thanks...I think.
Oh well, we will see. That's about the only true statement left to make.
The kill moves do seem to imply a need for some large modification of how individual combat is handled.
Do you get to insert your concerns into CA's development at all now?
I used to send the Rome developers the odd mail every now and then during the beta testing process. These were often ideas to improve or enhance the game and granted probably outwith the scope of patch, but as to whether they got read or considered for future projects is a different matter.
In the past, during LongJohn's involvement with TW, there seemed to be more interaction between parties and discussison on game mechanics were commonplace. Because the TW franchise wasn't as commercial and "big business" as it is now, maybe the community had a bigger influence on certain things? - but that's just speculation of course. :D
No except what I post on the forums. I've never emailed CA because I know several people who have tried this and they never got a response.Quote:
Originally Posted by AussieGiant
Fair enough.Quote:
Originally Posted by Puzz3D
I think they do read a lot here. This forum seems to be to most robust and informed, and that is always of value when companies are trying to maintain their business success.
Hopefully.But why they don't speak with us directly. E.g. I played more than 4000 (or 5000? ;) ) MTW Vi battles in multiplayer and i guess I know the game better than some MTW2 developer ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by AussieGiant
I do remember reading (in this forum maybe) that there was a limitation in the MTW being so that any individuals could only be engaged by 3 others at most at any one time. This was one of the reason behind the superman kings... They had loads of hit point, good stats and even when completely surrounded where still only fighting three men at once. I agree withthe rest though...Quote:
Originally Posted by Puzz3D
I too would love to know how the battle enigne functions now...
With permission, Puzz, I'm sure you are not biased, but did you mouse over the 3 cohorts who suffered 291 kills to make sure they contained (367-291)/3 = 25.3 men on average versus 80 on the other side? If you simply used the battle results page (which pops up once the enemy army routs) the 291 number may have been polluted by simulated routing kills even though you didn't kill any routers (assuming we're in custom battle). Still though, the results are staggeringly close to random results. Was the difficulty at normal?Quote:
Originally Posted by Puzz3D
I wholeheartedly agree with this and think the increased random factor is due to the following:Quote:
It seems to me that the old engine was a better simulation of combat, and it had several features that enhanced that further which have been lost in the new engine. The lower level of uncertainty in the combat model rewarded a well executed battleplan, and there was more depth to the tactics because small advantages weren't swamped out by the random factors. You could actually accumulate small tactical advantages over the course of a battle, and it paid off. The accumulation of small advantages is a basic concept in the game of chess.
- separate attacker and defender attack rolls, going first matters a lot
- fewer number of attack rolls
- higher chance to hit for units in general, to compensate for the fewer attack rolls
- higher chance to hit for lower tech units as the attack - defense difference doesn't matter as much anymore, (let alone things like height difference, spear vs cav bonuses, etc.)
The new engine will change the following:
- higher number of attack rolls
- lower chance to hit due to higher defense values overall
I therefore do not share this concern.Quote:
There is concern now that the finishing moves are going to further denegrate the combat model as a simulation of hand-to-hand fighting.
I can't find the post, but CA did clarify that in MTW more than 2 men can strike at a single man. They said it's only limited by the number of men that can fit around the enemy man. Each sprite has 8 sides. In practice with two units fighting, you don't often see more than two men attacking one because the men tend to stay in formation even when they are in engage-at-will. I might be wrong, but as I recall there was a better swarming effect in STW.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bob the Insane
Generals in STW and MTW multiplayer had 6 hitpoints, and more than that in SP depending on their health. The superman kings were also affected by battlefield upgrades which increased their combat power making them even more difficult to dispatch especially since they were usually a strong unit to begin with. In MTW/VI v2.01, LongJohn removed battlefield upgrades from multiplayer because we successfully argued that they could swamp out the anti-cav bonus and players were using a trick of taking good units such as chiv knight cavalry at valor = 0, and then getting free valor upgrades, which would otherwise be very expensive, by using those valor 0 units against weaker units. It was reported by multiplayers that 3 man cav units were beating 30+ man anti-cav infantry units towards the end of a battle. Now we see that battle field upgrades have made a return in RTW/BI multiplayer. What happened to the agreement between CA and the multiplayers that battlefield upgrades were not a good thing to have in multiplayer?
Normal difficulty in custom battle which isn't the best since the test should be carried out on LAN or online battle to eliminate the AI. I didn't end the battle prematurely so I don't think I got any simulated routing kills, but there is a possiblity of an unknown effect since the result was in the AI's favor both times. I actually didn't run the test to look for that. I only ran it to look for triple attacks.Quote:
Originally Posted by sunsmountain
I just recently saw a post by someone at .com raising a concern about the game allowing more than 2 on 1 fights and how finishing moves might affect the combat. It has been mentioned here before that a man is probably invincible while he carries out the finishing move animation. If so, this would clearly be another artificial effect introduced into the combat model.Quote:
Originally Posted by sunsmountain
None of the stuff I've brought up in this thread will be a concern to players who don't care about reasonably predictable combat results which is apparently the vast majority of players. It just doesn't really matter anymore. Right now I'm no longer willing to pay $50 for gameplay that I will probably find to be irritating, and I certainly can't recommend that the 10 members of my clan should purchase the game so that we can all play online again.
I think you should cool down Puzz3D. I respect you and your opinions, but you don't need to get mad over it.
I don't care how they do it, but I do care that it is a game that can be understood. And, for what I know, RTW is "really" predictable (Sometimes it can be unclear, but then, it is experience that differs), and I guess M2: TW will be the same.
One side winning a perfectly balanced encounter by over 2 to 1 is predictable? The result could easily flip the other way. This is called chaos, and it works against thoughtful gameplay.Quote:
Originally Posted by x-dANGEr
I wouldnt mind an occasional lopsided result such as you describe, say 1-20 battles. After all, its not chess we're playing.Quote:
Originally Posted by Puzz3D
You can still get that lopsided result on your own, however, simply by outmaneuvering and outthinking the enemy--which is originally what Total War battles were all about (and still should be, IMO).Quote:
Originally Posted by SpencerH
If two units of 60 men are perfectly identical in every way--same type, same valour, same weapon/armor upgrades, they're facing each other on the same terrain (i.e., not on a hill), etc.--then they should lose men at roughly the same rate.
The only thing that would really change that is if the "random"-number added to attack/defense rolls ended up favoring one unit over the other. Now of course this can and will happen from time to time (since statistics allows for clustering of unlikely events), and that's perfectly fine. But the vast majority of the time, two units (or groups of units) that are identical to each other and attack each other head on should suffer losses at approximately the same rate.
Eventually one side will win (because of the random dice rolls), but it's usually not going to be by a huge margin--nor should it be. I'm not a numbers guy like Puzz, but I still understand the basic concept behind what he's saying.
Well, basically all my experience comes from MP playing, and that's my reference when talking about battles, their speed and balance.
And so.
It is predictable that a side that flanks at the right time in the right spot through the melee encounter will win. Or a side that manages to keep his men off dart-fire, or missile fire, or even safe till the last moment, or a man who retreats his whole infantry line before contact because the morale level of his men is low, and then strikes back with an organised charge/flank setup..Quote:
One side winning a perfectly balanced encounter by over 2 to 1 is predictable? The result could easily flip the other way. This is called chaos, and it works against thoughtful gameplay.
@Martok: If you put 2 identical units against each other with identical circumstances, you won't get much of a difference in their men rate at the end of the battle. Though, if you enter moves such as flanking, "messing" (Messing that unit's formation), you might get what you're talking about. And, that is normal.