Multiplayer Campaigners

[Tomisama]

As much as folks have repeatedly ask for it (for years), we haven’t had much discussion about the multiplayer campaign (other that to say that it will probably be 1v1).

How many here are interested (besides Polemists ).

And what, if anything do we know about what’s in store?

[pevergreen]

We know that not only can you control your own faction, you can also fight any battle as the opposite side against your enemy. Say they invade france, you have the option to play france in that battle.

Strategies will be needed. I'm very interrested.

[CBR]

And that it will take a few months after release before its ready.

I could see myself playing some campaigns.


CBR

[tibilicus]

It will be good when it eventually gets up and running properly but I will say this, don't expect anything spectacular for months yet.

Whilst I suspect CA do care about this feature I'm pretty sure development of this will take back seat in comparison to expansion packs etc. So yer whilst I am looking forward to it what I see is a long process before this becomes part of a completed product.

BTW the reason for the pessimistic attitude is I'm not getting my hopes up again. I've been doing that since RTW so I'm more concerned about CA delivering us a good MP lobby system which actually works. Then my faith might be restored.


*Edit* CBR pipped me to the post with the same point 16 minutes earlier.

[peacemaker]

I dunno, it sounds pretty cool. I figure the first month I'm gonna be busy learning the controls and deciding my favorite factions, then trying out single player campaign to get a feel for it. Then, finally, I'll feel ready and will possibly try to go online.

[Martok]

I'll likely get in an MP campaign or two (assuming I can find the time, anyway). Given that this feature probably won't be fully implemented til at least this summer, though, I'd say we have a little while to wait.

[YellowMelon]

Could be good providing they do it like Civ does, in that we can still queue buildings and stuff while it is the other player's turn, otherwise it would be quite boring.

[Robespierre]

I hope that this will put an end to the TW Walkover syndrome. Image the Britannia campaign, say as England, against one live player. the rebellions, English and Welsh, would become a nightmarish quagmire of resources, throwing English king off balance and the (Presumably Scots) opponent could happily choose their moment to attack, capsizing Plantagenet entirely.

I wonder if it will be possible to do things like choosing to support the rebels on your own faction, once you're already trading blows with an opponent. You could deliberately provoke a rebellion. I suppose they would not automatically be at war with the rebels, say 13 colonies, but would be able to play the forces of a state they are at war with when you do battle with the alma mater, the old country. what is in their best interests to do in such a battle?

I llok forward to MP most keenly, but I doubt that I'll be in there early..

[Wishazu]

This is the feature I`ve wanted most badly since the release of Shogun. I will be jumping straight in as soon as it is activated. I can`t wait to smash my brother`s empire into dust. :)

[YellowMelon]

I imagine I will start playing it as soon as possible. I wanted it moreso in the RTW days, but I think if it functions well I may play it pretty exclusively.

[Mailman653]

I don't play MP much but I'd give this a try. I keep picturing a sort of grand alliance between both players and crush the AI together and not as much wanting to destroy the other player from the get go.

[RTKBarrett]

No challenge in that then...

[YellowMelon]

Ya...especially if u control ai in battles, i'de go right against the other player...though it would be interesting to see when you need to form an alliance, hehe.

[Mailman653]

Ya...especially if u control ai in battles, i'de go right against the other player...though it would be interesting to see when you need to form an alliance, hehe.

"Didn't you take all my colonial lands in turn 98 and now you wan't me to help you fight off a Mughal horde? Yeah....I don't think so." *Clicks blockade ports*

[YellowMelon]

I'd just keep sending messages saying

Your relations with my have decreased

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

1v1 in the Campagian Melon with me?

[YellowMelon]

I'll probably do them with my clan ;)

[PorT_Lobo]

Now that we can verify that Multiplayer campaign was a lye, how do you feel guys?

[pevergreen]

Now that we can verify that Multiplayer campaign was a lye, how do you feel guys?

Read.

Or even better, check your data folder.

Theres a multiplayer campaign folder hidden away there.

If you had paid ANY attention to this facet of the game, you would know that it is being put into beta LATER.

[Meneldil]

Can't wait to try it out, but to be honest, my brother and I usually play in coop, for I am a very bad loser. I'm better than him at TW games, but I doubt he would even take the risk to betray me at the bad moment.

[Swoosh So]

Having already played multiplayer campaigns in totalwar (Yes full campaigns battle and campaign map with a few rules) i think it could be a great experience, Myself and amp did some nice campaigns with rome totalwar and they generally were over in 1 night even with the manual changes and administration we had to do.

For me this was a highlight in my time with totalwar, was alot of fun to pit yourself against a human opponent on the camp map as well as the battle map. So i guess if properly implimented it could be a nice new direction for totalwar multiplayer. The lack of any chat foyer worries me tho infact im beginning to think its there and people just cant find it because i cant believe that ca would be so stupid to not include it.

Im guessing that games will take around 8-10 hours for a moderate game where a clear winner is decided on if the camp part of the game has around the same complexity of previous releases and players start in bordering countries ofc you could have huge games that will take weeks depending on how you agree to play or which factions you decide to use.

[peacemaker]

Well, I was thinking something sort of cheap. Say you and someone else decided to go and ally and dominate the world together, if your friend fights a battle with another faction, couldn't you control that other faction's army and force them to just stand there and die?

[Yun Dog]

This is the feature I`ve wanted most badly since the release of Shogun. I will be jumping straight in as soon as it is activated. I can`t wait to smash my brother`s empire into dust. :)

YES

I dont know how well it will work online, but with a few selected fanatical friends who play regularly enough to see a game through like my nephews I could see myself actually finishing a game or two.

Im excited about the idea of this, I hope this is not some rumor or hotseat/half done thing.

Ive played through heaps of Civ4 BTS games, question is how much longer do you think a campaign of TW would take online, alot more battle to fight when you x players. 4x as long?

Would it be possible for a player to control the AI's forces in battle? Maybe not, cause who would get to play it? In a game of more than 2 people it becomes complicated.


surely this sort of thing would be enabled as part of an expansion.

[pevergreen]

Would it be possible for a player to control the AI's forces in battle? Maybe not, cause who would get to play it? In a game of more than 2 people it becomes complicated.


surely this sort of thing would be enabled as part of an expansion.

Yes you can play the AI. The campaigns are 1v1 only, so its not complicated.

It will be in public beta within a few months.

[RangerLee]

Where are you seeing information for a MP campaign?

Any word if two people playing can Ally with each other? (or will alliances be nothing than an agreement not to attack each other...early on)

[Thermal]

I definitely would Battles or no battles the campaign part alone would be so much easier than emailing turns

[seireikhaan]

I will likely be up for some games when the feature is implemented.

[Swoosh So]

When this comes out its going to be a bombshell, will be totally amazing and will change for me the way totalwar is played in multiplayer, seriously guys the full mp campaigns we did in rome were so good and if ca can get it functional its really going to blow u away. The simple fact that u will face a human opponent on the camp map too is completely another level that the ai comes nowhere near. Moving armies in stealth becomes of the utmost importance ambushes from the forrests, terrain on the campaign map also.

There can also be impossible battles to win but in such games you can go for max casualties so you have the upper hand in the next battle that army engages in, you can hide a small force in woods and cut off enemy units moving to reinforce your opponents main army in your lands, basically starving it so it eventually dies out, spies become of the utmost importance with the fog of war and a human opponent making plans and sneaking about behind it, not to mention getting assasins in on the enemies best generals. The difference from the single player campaign is huge.

Myself and AMP only did 2 or 3 full campaigns in rome but i really really enjoyed it, some campaigns were totally hectic with amps horde in our gaul v germania campaign rampaging through my lands while i was desperately trying to form a defence army from all over the place, he was also picking off units i was sending to reinfoce my armies from my southern territories, i found myself using everything at my disposal spys assasins, and real thought on army movements on the campaign map hoping that amp wouldent spot and intercept my reinforcement armies. Seriously just the aspect of moving armies on the camp map vs a human opponent is a huge leap in gaming experience and requires real strategy.

The possiblities are endless the campaign maps are very dynamic for a player v player war situation, theres so many ways to play and you can be under real pressure if you get attacked from say 4 points you have to make strategic decisions on which cities you allow to fall to save others, you know i hear the mp battles online are quite good which is good news ofc but if theres a mp campaign as long as theyre just functional ill still be delighted when the mp campaigns come outi mean i totally hated the rtw battle engine but playing a mp campaign in rtw ranks as one of my top totalwar experiences ive ever had.

Heres some stoyboards i did on the wolves forums in those campaigns so you can get an idea of how mp campaigns were fought and what was involved, sorry theyre not too detailed i was just quickyl writing them up when amp was making his turns and this was also the playtest stage so we were discussing rules etc inbetween as we went along not to mention playing the campaign but i wanted to have some sort of record so quickly typed this stuff down. Also bare in mind we hadent even scratched the surface of the strategic depth of the game as we were playtesting and testing how our rules held up. We used a simple system to import casualties back into the campaign map from the online battles. Again sorry for the rushed storyboards was just so much going on with the design of rules and testing that i dident have much time to make them in a good format and some cut off b4 the end and miss a turn here or there.

Old post descibing part of the rulesets we had to use to get these running if anyones interested:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Well there is some work involved, i cant simply take the exact battle on the camp map and transfer it online (we asked ca for battle output files to do this but so far zippo) Basically what we do is take the units from the campaign battle and put the exact units into an online battle, To transfer the results back to the campaign map we would look at the casualty page and calculate what units were left, then simply disband those units from the armies on the campaign map or use the kill_character command if a general died.

This system is fairly easy - say you had 300 archers in the battle and the unit sizes were 60, you lost 160 archers in the battle leaving 140, thats 2 full units left 2x60 leaving 20 over - we used a system that you lose the unit carried over if the strength is below 50% so the 20 left over is not 50% of 60 so you would have 2 units of archers left.

Its important of course that the campaign moves with full strength units only, and unless we mod the campaign (which is easy) we would not have mercenaries. Also its better if theres no ai factions or rebels as this will cause units to be understrength from time to time, again its easy to remove rebels from a campaign or you can simply make a rule that understrength units cannot be used untill theyre reinforced.

Basically we had to adhere to around 15 rules to get a perfect campaign running (or as perfect as we could get it) and both those aar's were written in 1 night so you can see the process moves fairly fast even when back in that day we had to use halt_ai commands and control faction blah to switch factions, the new hotseat mode will remove these tasks and automate them so it should be alot faster with just the casualties being admin duty.

All you need really is a strong rule set that takes into account the problems, i have one which ill publish when kingdoms comes out (ill need to modify it a little) but of course its possible for people to make their own rulesets for their own campaigns.

We went for a simple functional ruleset that involved as little admin as possible and it seemed to flow really well, of course if you wanted a more in depth campaign you could make a larger and more complex ruleset.

The positive thing is everything runs ingame with the exception of battle casualties.

Storyboards

Gaul vs Germania:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Heres quotes of an old storyboard i made for mine and amp german v gaul campaign, unfortunately i lost the pictures from the wolves ftp site :(


i busted my chops last night and got this working its a fully functional campaign of both the campaign map and the battles, theres only 1 compromise all players must be human and casualties are counted as full units not by number of men, im playing the very first turn of the rome totalwar mp campaign right now! its amps turn ! germania v gaul, just about to do our first online battle as a result of the campaign map movements!!! ill keep u all posted and i could use ur help documenting this magy if ur interested u know how crazy i get with ideas:)

Ok turn 1 is over!!! amp tried to attack my force that i moved to border with germania but his army dident reach so i was able at the start of turn two to reinforce my army with 1 cav from nearby town and attack his army. I had a 5* gen and amp a 3* so his poor units were only v1 while mines were v2! amp suffered a crushing defeat as his gen died very early in the battle i lost one unit of cavs but poor amp lost his whole army! hes pissed off and has warned me hes attacking full throttle!!! lol im loving it allready going to train up an asssasin and try to get his faction heir! that should ruffle his feathers!

Ok turn 3 has started i moved my victorious army forward into his territory and stumbled upon the village of trier it has a wooden palisade and maybe 300 troops inside ive decided to seige the village for 2 turn to build two batterig rams, its amps go now in turn 3 and im wondering if he will attack out of the village or send reinforcements to try to get there before i attack!

Damn amp had another army nearby + the men in the village so he sallied forth to drive me off, the battle was his 762 men vs my 400 odd :\ anyway i couldent beat his phalanx style germans with my spearband units and my cav flanks were too little too late hed taked the extra men off phalanx flanked my fighting spearmen and broke them! my army was crushed to bits, and now i think hes 2 turns away from my village with only 2 cav defending it so at the start of turn 4 ive been building swordsmen there (hopedully they do better v the phalanxes althoughti know ill need flanks! anyway all my available troops are marching there pronto! but it looks like ill have 2 cavs 2 swordsmen by the time he gets there if he comes fast and finds my village I have also been making an army in the south of germanias lands ill send it north and hopefully ill get near one of his villages that may distract him long enough to build a defence force!

LOL my lucks in 2 of my heirs have come of age at the town!! that means i now have a total of 4 cavs +1 or two swords if he attacks! will still be hard tho i may withdraw till my other men get there :\ just hoping he doesent find my village!

Ill let u knwo as soon as i have time we want to get as much done as possible and i want to document what happens here, amp has decided to seige my town and build some battering rams, erm i never noticed its my capital!! anyway i got another 3 unit in range of the town to support me in the defence (depends how long he seiges for and i may have 3 swords, but his armys bigger than i expected!! dont know how many men because theres ? marks overthem when i click them but its gonna be tough!

Well his army was 1300 + !!! and mines a measly 256!!! i tried to be too smart and not move my 3 units coming to support the town too close incase he saw them and killed them before attacfking the town so they werent counted as reinforcements during the battle! anyway his ram took down 3 walls before getting destroyed and i was stuck with 2 swords 2 heirs and gen and his army vas v2 mines also well after spraying me over the walls with javelins he came in at 3 different plaecs and my men collapsed pretty quickly! the gaul capital has fallen to the germans!! and amp has a massive force securing it! im going to have to regroup at another town and use my army in his territory to hopefully get him to scrable SOME of that monsterous army back to germania!

ok amp has my town but things look okish, ive moved the 3 units that were supporting the town round a forrest so hopefully he doesent see them and split his occupying force to finish them, ive got gauls coming from every posible village and i may set an ambush for amp it all depends if he spots those 3 units im half expecting him to come back and say battle time! now that its his turn ok hes just informed me no battles phew!! so i regroup and hopefully get a good win (may try to defend a river) and harras him with my forces that ar already in his territory

Gah he just informed me he dident enslave or occupy! he killed all the inhabitants! and that will give him 1000+ in loot to bolster his forces :\ hes definately going for blitzkrieg i must stop this army before its reinforced!

well im now firmly in debt 3000 denarii, due to losing my capital and building troops at a phenominal rate, still ive managed to stabalise the debt and have got some good river crossing points to defend with an army ive managed to amass. still cant build anything untill i start making a profit so i must do with what i have and make sure i have sucess with it. If i dont manage to take back the capital with the troops i have i will most likely have to concede defeat

Great amp seems to have chilled out for a turn and i have a full 20 unit army to block any advance my units that were in his territory have attacked a town of amps with onlyy 1 unit in it, the town is mine and i go for some quick looting to get some badly needed cash! it had no walls so dident even have to seige problem is wont get much cash from it, anyway my other forces in the south have ambushed amps reinforcing armies on the way to the horde, couldent quite reach them but i made my presence known by moving right upto some of them, so i expect him to join all forces on that road and attack that small army of mine. Or if he cant muster enough troops to back off but that means i have troops on either side of the horde and can attack enmasse all depends what he does attack that intercepting army or not!

Well amp attacked with the horde frst to my large army his numbers surprised me tho he had 2400 troops while i had around 1400 :\ anyway the phalanx units proved too much for my spearmen with even amps ai controlled reinforcemnts doing ok on my right flank, he also got a good cav flank which broke my line (guess i was sleeping its 6am!! I had 4 cavs in the woods but they got there too late but did manage to wipe out no less than 7 of amps units invcluding his cavs amp decided against attacking the intercepting army and had moved his units off, i was tempted to attack my old capital but i dont have enough units in that army so off they go chasing the horde, im desperately trying to gather my remaining forces to face the horde but with unphalanxed spear warbands v the mght german phalanx warbands it seems very hard.

Thats my former capital on the right im desperatly tring to form a defence force to face the horde!!!

Amps horde finally proved too much for my remaining forces and despite having 6 provinces left i decided to concede the campaign. It was a great experience that we both enjoyed very much!! The fact it went so smoothley is great news i guess for a first try!!


Just copy pastes from my posts in wolves priv forum on a report of our first try at the full mp campaign in rome totalwar 1.0

Egypt vs Seleucids:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

A short story board thread on the egypt v selucid campaign that i dident finish (regretable now as i cant remember all that happened in that campaign.

Even tho egyptian units are very stong we decided this would be a good campaign because of the selucid empires financial might and good defencive positions also their ability to recruit elephants en masse.

I will be playing egypt and amp selucids we have ust started the first turn and i spent most of my cash upgrading barracks and so forth and sent a ship from my western most provice loaded with the units from that side to the provinces closest to amps lands.

He wll mst likely try to overpower me with his financial might so i must play alot better than i did last night. Â

Think ill wait on a big offencive and counter attack if i win it, i will also use spys and soforth to upset his provinces and get assasins to take out his high ranking generals, thats if i ahve time to build them before totalwar breaks out



Checking out amps nearest province with my spy...


Turn 2

Not much happening still building units and planning build strategy, my spy has entered amps city to see whats going on and gained some usefull information, as you can see fromthe picture his population loyalty is only 105% this means hes using the very high tax band to gain money as fast as possible, notice the amount of detail increses from the first picture now that my spy has actually entered the city, i can also see hes disbanded a unit of peasants well you expect that but spys are going to be very handy in the campaigns. I can also see a massive drop in population growth most likely due to the tax increases.

Turn 3

Well well someone been a busy boy just look at the amount of troops moved into damascus i can also see their leader will most likely be the faction heir at the top a 4* general, looks like hes built temples to keep the population happy and increase growth, again hes getting alot of phalanx units but thankfully ill have my nubian phalanxes to hold them, next turn i can build the dreaded desert cavalry and will be spending most of my resources on them and phalanxes for pin and flank battles along with archer and sling backup, i should have chariots soon also which are always good for causing a mess , i guess he will attack in 1 or two turns problem is i have 2 setlements and am not sure where to focus my forces. ill stengthen these settlements against seige so that i have time to deploy my main army wherever needed.

Turn 4

Well still amp sitting around building so i decided to spice things up a little by moving my army within range of his army from damascus and blockade one of his ports you can see in the second picture to reduce that ports income.



Not the best looking bloke i think youll agree but he has 3 stars as a general ah well noones perfect

Turn 5

I caught a ship from amps navy bringing his troops round the coast to his settlements near mine, i engaged and his fleet lost with no ships sunk, im going to go after that ship because if i sink it he loses the troops its carrying, also my spy in demascus was captured :\

Turn 6

A quiet turn all round, not much going on except building and planning, think ill spice things up a little by moving one of my armies into his territory (against my better judgement) but i want some action

Turn 7

I moved one of my armies into amps territory and managed to ambush one of his small armies consisting of 2 phalanx and 1 general.
Heh of course he dident stand a chance and was dispatched in the online battle, anyhow its 3 units i dont have to deal with later as part of a larger army, and knowing amp he will respond in spectacular style! the games afoot....

Turn7 AMPS counter attack

Well like i said he would respond in specacular style and did!



Battle was lost :\ i found myslef facing 10 phalanx and around 8 cavs, my army numbers were decieving because most of my army were archers and skirmishers just around half actually, anyway i failed to stop him but inflicted a decent amount of casualties killing his 3 * general too

As you can see theres lots of fun to be had playing the game this way, and with more players in a fully functional mp campaign it would be amazing with diplomacy backstabbing money lending and all sorts going on!

Cant wait! :)

[batemonkey]

i'm totally stoked by the whole idea