From The Firing Squad

[Papewaio]

Review

With the larger maps, it became necessary to speed units up. They don't move unrealistically fast, but the difference is quite marked when compared to the original two Total War titles. Walking infantry move about as fast as the older infantry ran. Yet, despite this, there's no sense of awkwardness to the gameplay.

Ummm apart from looking like they are flowing over the terrain, doesn't anyone at all think it is slightly counterproductive to create larger maps then increase the speed?

End up with the same feeling of size of a map, but now with the units on turbo. Which does make the animations look slightly silly as they now seem to skate across the land.

The move to 3D has also permitted and necessitated some changes in gameplay mechanics. For starters, individual characters on the screen are now truly independent. They try to remain in formation of course, but aren't as tight as they used to be. This is most evident on three occasions - a rout, when undisciplined formations charge, and during a cavalry charge. However, the move to 3D means that units can't respond instantly - they must go through their animations. So if you order them to pull back, they don't just turn around instantly and go the other way, they must rotate. This has the unintended but very welcome effect of seemingly delaying battle orders. Combined with the faster pace of play, a player can't immediately adjust his forces to counter his opponent's moves - it is possible and quite likely to make mistakes now if you don't anticipate correctly.

This answers a few questions. Faster play and controls that now feel laggy because the animations must be played out. Laggy controls okay or Faster play ok, but both means you don't feel like what you are doing has any effect. You are pushed out of the immersion because your actions are not accepted in real time.

Finally, there is proper siege equipment, and it will no longer be stuck in place like in Medieval. Even the mighty catapults will be maneuverable, though very slowly - and they're quite devastating against tightly packed enemy units that have poor morale

No seriously, I'm going to go and get hammered so that it makes more sense...

Since the reviewer just stated this before writing the above quote:

As you may have guessed, the units are as historically accurate as possible.

Seeing a flaw here... whoops thats right all our historical lessons now come from Australian Action Stars ie Braveheart and Gladiator...

Anyhow I will do as I did for MTW. I will wait to see the reviews posted here by my fellow players and see what they think.

[Sinner]

I think one of the more common mods, and probably one of the first, among the old school TW fans will be to reduce the movement rates for all units.

I'm fascinated by just why it was 'necessary' to speed up just because the maps are bigger. Could it be that big maps and realistic speeds could result in longer battles, which would bore the poor little darlings who just want to see as many dead bodies as quickly as possible? A typical wargamer is unlikely to be bothered by long battles, so why not make the warp factor movement part of this arcade mode they've added.

Ugh... given the awful ham-acting voiceovers in the demo, I wish I hadn't thought of warp factors, because I'm now imagining Shatner as a Roman general commanding his troops Kirk-style. "Third. Cohort. You. Will. Advance." - with appropriate overly melodramatic hand gestures and grimacing of course. ~:p

[tombom]

If they provided a save in battle feature, I'd love to have long battles. But in the end I can't spend hours on battles because I don't have the time.

[Shahed]

When I read some of this stuff the only thing I have time to say is:

LOL !

Wish I could say more but if I could only stop laughing.

LOL !

[Sinner]

If they provided a save in battle feature, I'd love to have long battles. But in the end I can't spend hours on battles because I don't have the time.

Which is not really different than the situation we have in MTW now. We can easily have battles that can take hours, but complaints are rare, if anything I've heard more of the opposite, with players cheerfully describing the epic battle they've just fought. We have time advance controls, so it wouldn't be difficult for the player to speed up the game while their army and the enemy approach each other, dropping to real time speeds when close or combat begins, or even leaving it running at high speed if that's what they desire. In MTW we had the choice, in effect that choice has been taken from us in the unmodded game.

In any case, a big map doesn't mean that battles will always take longer, it all depends upon where the combatants set up in relation to each other, just like in MTW you could end up toe to toe from the very start.

[Elmo]

I've long been a critic of CA's support (patch) policy but not of their design expertise. However if the reviewer got this right then it certainly leaves me wondering what CA was thinking?!

From my limited experience with the demo so far, the units sure feel like they are moving faster than in MTW and the controls feel like they lag at times (my system meets or beats all the min specs). If that is how they are trying to portray the difficulties of command in ancient times, faster units and slower mouse response, then this game isn't for me.

Edit - OK after reading the review again there is no mention of lag in the controls. That is my own impression from playing the demo. If units respond more slowly now because they turn/move as individual men that would be an interesting way of simulating command and control issues. I'm not an expert on this time period, so how did generals issue orders after the battle started? Runners, hand signals, horns, flags? Or did they just sit back and watch it all unfold in 3D glory?

[Sinner]

I don't have a problem with slow response to commands, after all it is realistic, although I would hope that the leader of each unit and nearby men would tend to react more quickly, with the command effect then spreading through the formation plus disciplined troops reacting faster as well. I doubt that either will be true though since it sounds more like a side effect of the new engine and that they've just come up with a viable explanation to help fend off complaints.