Gamespot Q & A

[Sir Beane]

Go here for a question and answer interview with CA.

Credit to bloodshed for finding this!

There's a lot of good info about the way trade and economy work in the game.

In addition to this, we've introduced trade theatres. These are sea regions that are located in various areas of the globe including the East Indies and the Ivory Coast. These regions are rich in tradable resources and can be controlled by placing merchant fleets on trading outposts. The more merchant ships you have active on these outposts, the more profit you glean from them. Of course, these routes and regions are also subject to raiding, and there can be fierce rivalry over the monopoly of trading posts across the theatres. This provides an excellent springboard for naval engagements throughout the campaign.

There's also a mention of pirates! Arrr!

Commerce-raiding a rival nation's trade routes on land and sea is a very effective strategy to boost your own coffers, whilst inflicting hefty damage to an enemy's economy. So yes, players will have every opportunity to construct fleets specifically for naval piracy.

Similarly, pirates are a faction in the game in their own right, and they will attack and plunder the trade routes that they come across, including those of the player, throughout the campaign. You can stamp them out, but lawlessness in certain regions can see them reemerge.

Sounds like good stuff!

[Familyguy1]

Loved it, expect a demo is the next day or two.
:)

[Phog_of_War]

Sounds juicy.

I'm off to Gamespot (even though I hate GS )

[Polemists]

The more merchant ships you have active on these outposts, the more profit you glean from them.

This sounds smiliar to the merchant mechanic of MTW2, except it's merchant ships rather then merchants.


The raiding sounds interesting but I hope it's well orchestrated raids, and pirates and not annoying.

It's fine to be attacked, even having your trading lane threatened but if it's one little pirate ship attacking entire fleets of merchant ships every 3-4 turns that'd get aggrivating.

expect a demo is the next day or two.

I hope so, sadly the demo I didn't see mentioned in the article :(

[knoddy]

hehe sounds good. how cool would it be you could build a small fleet and sail them under a pirate banner and attack non enemy ships for money :)

i guess we wont find out for sure

until a




demo....


isnt that right polemists :)

[Sir Beane]

hehe sounds good. how cool would it be you could build a small fleet and sail them under a pirate banner and attack non enemy ships for money :)

i guess we wont find out for sure

until a




demo....


isnt that right polemists :)

You see this Polemists? You are dragging other people along with you now. Have you no shame?

[USS Providence 1972]

Go here for a question and answer interview with CA.

Credit to bloodshed for finding this!

There's a lot of good info about the way trade and economy work in the game.


There's also a mention of pirates! Arrr!



Sounds like good stuff!

There seem to be several major improvements in this game from previous editions. The most obvious is the naval aspect. Trade seems to deeper. One tidbit from the article is the ability to trade technology. That would seem to be a quicker way to obtain technology than the old way of taking several turns to research it. Diplomacy also is much improved. Instead of having diplomats roaming all over the globe it is now centralized.

I'm curious to see how the monarchy vs republic aspect of the game will play out. Is Great Britain the only republic at the beginning of the game?

The article mentions they are currently in beta. Will they release a demo before they finish with beta testing?

I've played total war from the beginning, looking forward to this one.

[Megas Methuselah]

If you had multiple stacks, couldn't you just grant the other two to AI control?

[a completely inoffensive name]

Looks to be better then the past Total War games, I will probably buy it within the first month barring any unforeseen major glitches arising or patching needed.

[Polemists]

In the past AI has had a option of being controlled by you or the AI regardless of how many stacks you bring.

The questions is whether they drift in again one at a time or if they are going to be another army in the distance that arrives when you do.

No one knows really, so we shall see.

in

the

DEMO

[Sir Beane]

In the past AI has had a option of being controlled by you or the AI regardless of how many stacks you bring.

The questions is whether they drift in again one at a time or if they are going to be another army in the distance that arrives when you do.

No one knows really, so we shall see.

in

the

DEMO

I think the interview is implying they drift in one at a time. I agree with otehrs saying this could lead to extremely long, drawn out battles. Especially if there are multiple stacks involved on each side.

[hoom]

As the campaign progresses, players can now access this rich political tapestry via a new panel which lets them see at a glance how each nation is regarded by others, and how they regard their rivals. Players can also see which events or factors have created the current state of relations between nations.
...The AI has a far better recollection of previous events than ever before, and it will bear grudges or honor sacrifices.

I'm hopeful that this works out well like it sounds.
I've seen some comment about the Diplomatic options being much the same as Rome/M2 but thats ok as long as they actually work and/or we can figure out why they work in the way that they actually do (which would allow players to alter their play style to gain better outcomes).

Ooh this too

The campaign map AI has also been completely rewritten and acts to achieve longer-term goals and specific war aims.

Particularly cool would be if we could potentially find out some of those goals via Rakes or something?