Land battles FAQ

[Monsieur Alphonse]

Link http://blogs.sega.com/totalwar/2008/...tal-war-faq-6/

Will the battle maps be bigger?

Yes they are. The battlefield playable areas are currently up to 1.4km2.

[Megas Methuselah]

How big were battle-maps from RTW and M2TW?

[Jack Lusted]

About 800m x 800m in RTW, so Empires 1.4k x 1.4k is quite an increase.

[CBR]

Hm so is it 1.4 km² or 1.4x1.4 km?


CBR

[Megas Methuselah]

Good question. I await an answer, although I would imagine it would be 1.4k x 1.4k. That's sweet.

[hoom]

The current mechanism assumes that the battlefield chosen is the best that could be attained as a result of manoeuvre and counter manoeuvre of opposing forces and the limits of terrain in the area.

Was not particularly happy with the answer here.
At least in the RTW engine, you could place your army on a hill on the campaign map, expecting a battle to have your army sitting on a hill & the enemy on the down face, only to find yourself on the downside facing up to the attacking army sitting on your hill!

[Polemists]

So this isn't like MTW 2 where if I get attacked on a bridge the battle takes place with some land, a bridge, and a river?

I don't get how the counter thing is diff then MTW 2 but then again I don't really get it camera angle discussions

[Jack Lusted]

Hm so is it 1.4 km² or 1.4x1.4 km?

As I said 1.4km x 1.4km.

[Monsieur Alphonse]

Good news. Although 1.4*1.4 is almost 2km2

[CBR]

As I said 1.4km x 1.4km.

Thanks.

Yes 2 km² maps are a good improvement although it depends a bit on artillery range. It does not take much before a centrally placed battery position can dominate most of the map.


CBR

[Alerion]

afaik the lightest artillery of that time (with the highest range) had a range of about 600 metres...

[Sheogorath]

The British were not always the best at everything.

Haha! Confirmation from CA!
'Tis a glorious day!

[hoom]

afaik the lightest artillery of that time (with the highest range) had a range of about 600 metres...

Which means that a unit in the middle of a 1400 * 1400 map dominates a 1200m diameter area...

[Sheogorath]

Which means that a unit in the middle of a 1400 * 1400 map dominates a 1200m diameter area...

Of course, I dont think you're going to find many perfectly flat battlefields.
Knowing CA, we're probably still going to encounter the occasional 'Giant hillside, where the player is at the bottom and the AI is at the top. Also, there's a forest covering the entire map.' map.

[fenir]

I couldn't help myself, I luaghed and laughed.

1.4km², is that 1.4 km x 1.4 km?...........roflmao.

too funny. 1.4 x 1.4 = 1.4². lol


so 1.4 x 1.4 = 1.96 which is 1.4² We find this by taking the square root of 1.96, which = 1.4²

So essentially, i think this would be the converse of pythagoras, a² x b² = c²

So from here we can work out if the trianlge is , right, acute, or obtuse.

If,
a² x b² = c² it is a right angle, trianlge.

a² x b² > c² , then it's a acute triangle.

a² x b² < c² , then it's a obtuse trianlge.

Which then moves on to produce, the law of consines. Where we can represent, a + b -2ab cosΦ = c²


Or we can do it the longway, in cartesian coordinates. (which in it's self is a part of the pythagroas theorm.

(x0, y0) (x1, y1) are points, which are a and b, each having it's own coordinates.

SO "x" being the being teh axis horizontal, and "y" is the vertical axis.

So if we take,


(x1 - x0)² + (y1 - y0)² = φ Where φ is the variable of the function.

Then complete the square root. you will have your distance between,two points, so this first one, will only complete the "a" lenght.

You will then have to take the two points for "b". Then you will ahe your points
I suppose we could have done some euclicdian n Spacem but that takes longer.

It all really means, Is that given two sets of points. on the xy axis. We can move to work out the distance between two points.
ONce we have the distance, say a and b, when can then work out hypothenuse.
Once with ahve the hypothenuse, then can then work out the inside angles, by using the cosine rule.


Ahhh i could go on all day with this one, but i see many of you are already asleep.

sincerely

fenir

[Alerion]

yoi great... back to topic... an artillery with 600 metres of range wouldnt "dominate" this 600 metres... since a unit with that range would be light artillery it wouldn't do as much damage as other stuff and it wouldnt be highly accurate at this range... heavy artillery ranged about 200 metres at that time and thats still building busters... this ammunition is not the ideal thing to deal with enemy troops... that would be grape shot and since grape shot makes the cannon ultimately a giant shotgun the effective range against infantry or cav would be even lower

also about the diameter... it depends... if you dug the cannon in this preparation defences that were mentioned somewhere by CA you wont be able to move it alot so I doubt you could turn it all the way around then... and even if you could... if some cav manages to outflank you it'd would probably be too late to turn around your cannon the moment you notice a cav unit charging at it from behind

[Megas Methuselah]

Lol, Fenir. No, 1.4km2 isn't 1.42. The square on the km merely means that it's a different unit of measurement, mainly being an area and not a length.

Anyways, thx for the information, Alerion. So freedom of movement will probably be largely guaranteed on the battlefield, I presume. This ought to be fun, attempting to outmeneuver the enemy on both the campaign map and the battlefield.

[pdoyle007]

As you got further away from the cannon the range would diminish so 600m cannon wouldn't dominate. As previously mentioned even on a totally flat, wind free, featurless battlefield you'd have to fire roundshot which was a relativly small projectile considering the distance.

It does mean that a frontal assault against cannon is even more foolhardy. Especially against enemies that have multiple cannon (do we know how many where in each unit card?)

Although I think at the time the idea was to have the cannon on an angle to fire across the front of the advance to keep killing right up until the point the armies met

[Alerion]

I guess cannons WILL be pretty strong... but I guess you'll have to be able to use them... just leaving them somewhere alone in the open will probably get them killed, but to guard them might be tricky... you can't really put anyone in front of the cannon, unless you have the cannon on a hill and the guarding infantry a little down the slope...

remember those things didnt fire nice arcs like our good old RTW archers...

[Intrepid Sidekick]

Couple of points:

The 1.4km2 is a boob. It should be 1.96km2 and therefore 1.4 x 1.4 km.

Cannon on the battlefields may not have absolutely realistic ranges. Just as we dont have armies that are 1 for 1 in scale. They are however effective and do create killing grounds. Just dont think you can dominate a battlefield with an army full of cannon. You wont.

[Sheogorath]

Couple of points:

The 1.4km2 is a boob. It should be 1.96km2 and therefore 1.4 x 1.4 km.

Cannon on the battlefields may not have absolutely realistic ranges. Just as we dont have armies that are 1 for 1 in scale. They are however effective and do create killing grounds. Just dont think you can dominate a battlefield with an army full of cannon. You wont.

I dunno, I've seen some pretty effective all-cannon armies in NTW :P

Although they mostly depend on having a river between you and the enemy.

The most hilarious battle I've ever seen was an army full of Congreve rockets against a regular army of Prussians. Who were routed.

Speaking of those, I assume Congreves are in the game since I think one screenshot showed rockets, but are they going to be as hilariously inaccurate as in NTW? There's nothing like firing a volley of rockets only to have one of them fly five meters and lodge in your general's skull.

[fenir]

Methuselah,




1.4² = 1.4 x 1.4


ok lets break it down. 1.4km = 1400 meters.
1400 meters on the y axis, and 1400 across on the x axis.
Now how do we obtain the surface area? 1400 x 1400 = 1,960,000 square meters.

The unit of measure is not effeted it's the numbers and the equation that matter.



Intriped Sidekick.

How do you get 1.4 x 1.4 = 1.96²?


Ahhhh the penny drops.

1.4 x 1.4 = 1.96km² (1.96 Sq km)


so, 1.4km x 1.4km = 1.4²km = 1.96km² Damnit, memory fading.


Sincerely

fenir

[Megas Methuselah]

Yeah, you're right(you are right, right?). Lol, I dunno what I've been drinking lately...

However, I'm glad to hear all-canon armies won't dominate the field of battle. My heart is at peace!

[hellenes]

Im so happy!!!!!!!!
At last the battle maps grow bigger than the arcade/casual/dumbed down instant gratification speedy RTW/M2TW maps...

[Megas Methuselah]

I hope the instand-routs are a thing of the past!