Games On Net interview - questions answered from the public

[Myrddraal]

Anyone noticed this?
http://games.on.net/article/9774/Com...un_2_Total_War

Those crazy warlords are at it again, and this time Total War is revisiting the era of sneaky Ninjas and brave Samurai in Feudal Japan. Sega kindly offered us an interview with Shogun 2's Lead Designer, James Russel. We turned the questions over to you - read on for his detailed replies.

[Kagemusha]

Thanks Myrdd! I havent read the interview before. Most of it seem to be said before, but there are some interesting tidbits like about the "hero units", in matter of fact consisting of hero and his band of retainers. So instead of having Kensai´s running around i think CA could be more likely offering "legendary" units to certain clans lead by famous samurai, like The Red devils of Il Naomasa or the Takeda Fire Cavalry lead by Yamagata Masakage. Thats atleast how im interprating the answer.

[Gregoshi]

They answered my one burning question on the speed of combat - will it be slower like STW/MTW or fast like RTW/M2TW. I think I liked their answer, but speed is a subjective thing. The other thing I found a bit funny was the question about warnings of impending war outbreaks. I never realized that this feature of STW was lost somewhere along the way.

[Swoosh So]

What did he mean coop campaign did he just mean the mp campaign and if so its worrying that ca dident give a definative answer on this mp feature already in the game :(

[Gregoshi]

Swoosh, it is my guess we won't be hearing much in the way of definitive answers on MP for a while yet. They just keep saying they are working on some big things for MP. Sounds to me like they need to hammer out the MP features they are hoping to add.

[Martok]

They answered my one burning question on the speed of combat - will it be slower like STW/MTW or fast like RTW/M2TW. I think I liked their answer, but speed is a subjective thing.

That last part is key. I've never cared for the combat speeds in the newer games (although Empire's battles don't seem to be quite as bad as in RTW/M2TW), so I'm admittedly a little more pessimistic than you are in this regard. Obviously I very much hope the pacing has been slowed down, but we shall simply have to wait and see.

The other thing I found a bit funny was the question about warnings of impending war outbreaks. I never realized that this feature of STW was lost somewhere along the way.

Interesting; I didn't realize (or perhaps I'd forgotten) that was supposed to be in the original. I do know the feature was in MTW, although it wasn't always the most reliable -- you tended to end up with a lot of "false positives" from spies warning that Faction X is planning to attack Faction Y (or Province Z), only for said attack to not materialize roughly 80% of the time.

[Tsar Alexsandr]

I like the idea of the legendary units a lot. :D I would love to Yamagata Masakage and Naomasa Il leading their famous red cavalrymen. :D

[Gregoshi]

That last part is key. I've never cared for the combat speeds in the newer games (although Empire's battles don't seem to be quite as bad as in RTW/M2TW), so I'm admittedly a little more pessimistic than you are in this regard. Obviously I very much hope the pacing has been slowed down, but we shall simply have to wait and see.

In the interview, CA seemed to acknowledge that combat had become too fast and that was the part I found encouraging. I thought STW had a perfect flow. The armies marching speed just felt right. Same with the combat. As I recall, when MI came out, there was a slight increase in movement speed, which I thought looked unnatural, but I don't recall the combat speed changing noticably. I don't remember enough about MTW to comment on it and it doesn't run on my PC anymore. Once RTW came, everything about combat felt like a "quicky".

Interesting; I didn't realize (or perhaps I'd forgotten) that was supposed to be in the original. I do know the feature was in MTW, although it wasn't always the most reliable -- you tended to end up with a lot of "false positives" from spies warning that Faction X is planning to attack Faction Y (or Province Z), only for said attack to not materialize roughly 80% of the time.

One of the nice things about STW was that the clans had different levels of aggressiveness, so your alliance with Takeda was worth about as much as the paper it was written on, while clans like the Shimazu were fairly reliable. So when warnings starting coming about about Shimazu war drums, it was time to start thinking about turning an eye towards them. I never paid attention to how often a false alarm happened, the warnings seemed fairly reliable as I recall.

[Shibumi]

1. The graphics in the video is beautiful, night fights did however look a bit to dark for me. It is hard to see stuff clearly in a sunlit room, and I dont much like drawing curtains shut to play a game.

2. I like the way naval and amphibious battles seem to work. Having land in naval battles adds to strategic depth, and not mixing sea/land is wise considering the AI and engine, while still keeping the option of assaulting land from boats (I assume the boats will be in fixed positions, possible determined by the player before battle starts but then not moving once battle commence).

3. Heroes, as I understood it, there will be a specific heroe, but with a bodyguard. Just like a general works. IE, we can see individual fights between heroes, as their bodyguards battle it out. Seem like a good solution, having one-man units is boring imho. I guess the bodyguard is a small unit with extra HP too, just like a generals.