Rome 2 Total War and Europa Barbarorum

[wangchang]

Oh well, I contacted them anyhow with an email and pretty much begged them to draw on the work of the EB team when they make the game, rather than Hollywood like in Rome 1. It wouldn't take them any extra work to do so - if anything it would be easier as the EB team already did all their research for them and compiled it in to handy dandy faction previews, and also that it would still sell just as good if it had some realism. However, after seeing how realistic Shogun 2 was I do have some hope that it won't be a disney freakshow like before, with bright colourful lorica segmenta wearing Romans and Egyptian Pharaoh soldiers and battlefield assassins.

I had those hopes to but then I heard, in the lead designer interview, a sentence that bothered me : ''Barbarians in the forest and exotic empires in the east''. the interview is here :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tyc...feature=relmfu
, I made a comment about this that is still in the top comment but I fear they will go for the hollywood barbarian look again, out of ignorance.

The problem is that a random dude sending them like you and me will have almost no credibility, they will probably not read the mail.



The best would be if the team's leaders contact them on behalf of the whole EB community. If they make an official approach , on behalf of one of the most successful mod and the most accurate one, they will have a lot of credibility, and they will raise awareness amongst CA. This approach will also encourage CA to follow this lead, at the crucial moment when they will start the full design of the civilization, or while they are doing it. It will have it's weight, and it might even help to give credibility to some CA member who are arguing for the same side.


Making an official approach will put the question on the table at CA, so they will carefully pay attention to it, whatever they planned in the first place, and they may choose the accuracy option, like they did in shogun2 or napoleon.





It's a chance to take, knowing that the game might not be modable, we cannot take the risk of seeing the Celts and Germans stuck with the barbaric savage role for the rest of our playtime!

[bobbin]

Jack Lusted confirmed that the Romans will be one faction here. I suspect all this talk of multiple "factions" is about internal divisions and such like.

As for the EB team writing a letter to CA like before I don't see the need to, the existence of the mod already does the job far better and CA are well aware of our work. When CraigTW posted about the current modding situation last year, EB was specifically singled out as an example of the value of mods.

[wangchang]

As for the EB team writing a letter to CA like before I don't see the need to, the existence of the mod already does the job far better and CA are well aware of our work. When CraigTW posted about the current modding situation last year, EB was specifically singled out as an example of the value of mods.

I get your point, I know CA is well aware of this mod existence and exemplarily. Yet, that doesn't mean that the ''historian'' team of TatW will think of your mod when they will design the factions, they not even be aware of your mod : CA is a big company, not all employee are really aware of the forum activity, and CA may not necessarily find the need to inform them on the modding situation. When they are in the process of designing the factions, they may even be impressed that the Europa Barbarorum team contact them and recall them of the huge amount of information they compiled. It's more about reminding them at the crucial moment than informing them.

[moonburn]

relax ca knows eb exists and as i stated in a thread when shogun2 came out both groups have far more to gain then to loose by ignoring each other

ofc ca won´t make a totally historical game but they can borrow alot from eb particulary the eye candy stuff and quite a few game mechanics and quite a few units wich are just amazing they´ll never leave out the brithein or the solduros or the orcas or the agematos i mean seriously they are blockbusters on their own

also since they introduced merchants in medieval 2 they will probably also take on all the merchant roads that eb as already set up for them and maybe go as far as extending the map as eb did to include backtria i mean baktria on it´s own would be mind bogling and an extraordinary trump card in terms of marketing if you also add the takashilans and the sauka rauka it gives you the chance to tap into the chinese market (the basin is nowadays part of china) and the indian market and who doesn´t want a 2.8 billion people market ? ca ain´t dumb and they probably recognised the potential of making the game atractive to indians and chinese by having them represented (even if not in their full glory )

also there´s a game mechanics that it´s hard to code in but might give the internal strugle and war that it takes wich is when 1 faction dies that faction slot can be recycled so that when civil war happens that open faction slot can take in the rebelious factions so a roman civil war (when rome is the 1st nation in the game ) can degenerate into 3/5 diferent factions with powerfull families on one side the senate on the other and the rebellious slave/protectorates rising in independence

that would allow a breaking into the jewish market by allowing the maccabians or whatever their name was to be an emerging faction and whoever says the jewish can say the illergetten or celtiberians or lussitanians or belgians or whatever faction that has fictionalised 19th century conections to nowaday nations wich opens more doors to more markets including the ukranian and russian and polish with the luigians the basternae and bosphorians or sauromatae both extremly atractive markets nowadays

also another finepoint by eb is the introduction of level4 goverments with puppet kings or mercenary generals thats one inovation they can´t ignore it makes the game more fun realistic and even 13 year old kids hooked on stimulants such as colas and other sugary beverages/foods will love it and praise ca and totalwar for it overall eb1 was the beta phase of rometotalwar2 and eb2 will be the realtotalwar2 and rometotalwar2 only has to have a better diplomacy and a stouter game engine to be the ultimate strategy totalwar game

there´s like a shitload of ways that ca can screw this up and fail to get the new generation of gamers hooked on their products but they already have the recipy and the ingredients with eb it´s all up to their cooking habilities (creating a proper game engine) to make sure they suceed or phail

[wangchang]

I agree with what you said, yet reminding CA that they should use this modd to design their factions will not hurt anybody. They might not think about using those modds, espceially since not everyone in CA's team know about the extent and magnitude of the modds out there.

It's more about reminding them. In a time were they are searching for sources and information, if one of those source reminds them they they can use it's contents, then they have more chance to use it.

[capomafioso]

something i hope that is included in rome 2, which isnt even a difficult thing to implement, is the languages. One thing i loved about EB is that it has romans speaking latin, greeks speaking ancient greek, and so on, this is something that i tried to implement myself many times into vanilla rtw and couldnt do, but nothing breaks the feeling of being an ancient general like hearing "were under attack!" in plain english.

probably though this wont be happening

edit: regarding the voicemods, nothing made me happier than hearing the correct pronounciations, with "v"s being pronounced as "w"s and phy in somatophylakes.

[Jormungand]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tyc...feature=relmfu

There's a huge war going on at the Rome 2 Total War Designer Interview vid on YouTube. I've tried to enter the fray here against some particularly unscrupulous individuals, to quote for example -

"For all intents and purposes, everyone outside of Rome is a barbarian. What is the big ****ing deal?
Get the **** over it. "

Until now I've persistently reminded myself not to get dragged into the endless conundrum that is the YouTube argument. Sorry. This is an issue dear to my heart here. Couldn't resist...