Some explanation on why speed matters to MPers.

[Louis de la Ferte Ste Colombe]

There is much talk about speed, controls and all that has changed or will change with RTW in the light of the recent demo. Hopefully, the full game will silence most of our speculation :)

For one, I don't live in the nostalgia of STW (I have not played it) or MTW; I like MTW a lot, and I quickly moved away from SP to MP (I did not like the campaign much).

I'll focus on MP, so pause and mods are not potential alternatives, it just won't happen. Same for speed bar; it's not enabled in MTW MP, and I don't think it will in RTW MP (I'd liked to be proven wrong though).

MTW MP is very rewarding and nice to play, a very good experience on the long run, but suffers from a very difficult learning curve.
For good strategy games, we often say they are easy to learn and tough to master; MTW is not easy to learn.
I think one of the main reason the game failed to attract large numbers in MP was that the inital battles in MTW MP were not a good experience, more of a frustrating, lost-in-control-no-pause-mayhem-experience*. Beginners were often not able to move their army correctly, not so much because of lack of tactic skill, but because the game was already too fast, and their mastery of the interface inadequate. Most know what to do, but the game stands in the way.
And I'd not blame that on the beginners; if the game interface is not good enough for generals to move armies according to their wishes, I'd blame the game, not the general.
I mention pause as no solution before; let's put it that way; for me, every time someone got to use pause for a game reason (you can loo all you want :) ), that means CA failed to deliver an interface easy enough, and a speed adequate enough for the game to be played.

With the demo there is hope for a better interface, but the faster speed will make it even tougher for SPer or player playing other games to move their army as they want in RTW. So the learning curve might stay just as steep. Not much of an improvement for people new to MP.

For MTW veterans, those with thousand of battle in STW, I can only guess (I'm a MTW noob :p) what other issue they might face.
MTW MP has appealed to a different crowd from RTS players, probably because it was very tough to learn (see above), and also because the game was different, with a heavy focus on morale and tactics. A lot of the game enjoyment came from the possibility to have deeply tactic and wellthought battle. Chess like, but in realt time with some action. At least for me :)
Even that part of MTW MP was not perfect, and there is a lot to say about the imbalance of the Rock Paper Scissor system** that made the game a little less tactically rich than it ought to be, but still enjoyable, and that's another story anyway.
To have interesting tactics, we need the possibility to have action and reaction, to commit reserve, to help an ally...
Game speed will influence that. And so will the interface.

Let's take a classical example; one ally being attacked by two ennemies, and we'll assume we want to help our ally.
1st, I need to be aware my ally is attacked; that means a good camera system and an helpfull minimap. Not sure anything has changed positively in that respect. So the 'awareness time' is likely to remain unchanged.
2nd, I need to order my units to move to my ally side. Better control can help. Then the units go to do the walking. And that's faster for me thanks to higher speed, on the other hand attacking armies are also faster.

I need to do that before the two ennemies get to my ally army. I move faster, but they move faster too. And they move first. If we assume the first step time is constant, faster speed means my ally will be in a double situation for a longer time.

Other example; retreat tactics or refused flanks will also be tougher to implement; if attackers move so fast that the defenders don't have the time to react by moving back, then moving back possibilities will disappear. Again to retreat you need to be 1/ aware of the attack, 2/ actually move back. Once moving back, as both armies are faster, it's not an issue, but if the game is really fast, I doubt a defender will have the time to order a proper retreat before the attacked make contact; it's already difficult in MTW, speed will make it tougher in RTW.

Faster speed help the first mover, and makes the action/ reaction game much tougher. There will be action, but not much of a reaction.

Now, to be fair, speed in only one part of the problem. If RTW comes with a really great camera/ minimap system, or with a very easy to way to implement teamtalk (pressing t or y in game was not really great), maybe the reaction time will be shortened and that will help to have action and reaction.
Also, other factors can help to make the game slower without changing its speed.
Let's go back to the first example; one ally being attacked by two opponents. One of the factor is morale; if outnumbering morale penalty are low, maybe our ally can survive a longer time, and we can come to help. Even in MTW this would play out very differently in different setting. When playing at very low florin, with low morale, two attackers on one defender was often a very fast defender rout; outnumbering penalty were too big to manage at low morale.
At high morale, it was quite doable to hold a loooooong time at one defender.

But now we are playing with other variables, such as morale and morale penalties... that might affect the unit behavior in very different ways...

At the very worse, the first movers advantage with higher speed will be such that in MP we'll only see rush and double rush. Counter rush will be tougher. No more tactics, no thanks.

Slightly better, but still not a good situation, with more training and time spent on learning the camera and interface, there will be room for action and reaction. In that case, I am pretty sure that many won't bother going throught that very tough learning curve and RTW MP will be played by a very small number of players who got it, and dropped by countless others...
A bit like MTW MP today, just with a even harder learning curve thanks to additional speed.
Also, in that situation, skills is not so much a question of sound tactics, but a question of knowing the interface. Hardly the "easy to learn, difficult to master" situation.

At best, we'll get a beautiful game, slightly improved controls, and still a tactically rich game (who knows maybe even better than the poorly balanced MTW MP).

We'll see. That's just Demo speculation :) But I hope it explains a bit the concerns of some MPers regarding speed.

Louis,

*three other reasons; gamespy, and a non intuitive buying system (beginners don't know what army to take), no mp campaign.
** Rock Paper Scissor system; sword beats spear, spear beat cavalry, cavalry beat sword; was broken in MP, and spears were not needed.

[DonCoyote]

thank you for a great post Louis.

"No more tactics" just about says it all.

in some ways your concerns over speed & the ability to act/react apply almost equally to SP - its just that SP'rs have the ability to pause & compress time. for the latter (SP'rs) there will still be problems moving troops & getting troops into the appropriate formation.

i think you are slightly too harsh on CA for the need/use of a pause button, the computer has incredibly tight control of all its units whereas i dont - thats the only reason i need to use pause (not counting having to go to the toilet during a multi-hour SP slog).

i think you have hit the nail-on-the-head on the possible difficulty of MP for inexperienced players, but we could discuss ad infinitum whether that truly matters to CA or not. its difficult to see that the MP portion (on its own merits) sells a large number of units (of the game).

i guess i am a SP'r at heart, but i have played a little MTW MP in the beginning & enjoyed it for the most part, i doubt if RTW MP will have a similar appeal for the majority.

Don Coyote

[hoom]

As a single player who uses pause, with certainly hundreds if not 4 digit numbers of battles under my belt, I am anti high unit speeds just as much as you MPers.

I use pause particularly so that I can go & zoom in on a bit of the battle, watching my little sprites have at it.
I pause now & then to get an overall look & give some orders that would otherwise not all get done in time.

Its all well & good to say that SPers can just pause & issue new orders, but with such fast units, the whole game becomes a chore of pause, give orders, watch a tiny bit of battle pause, give orders, watch a tiny bit of battle...

I've been particularly disappointed with the demo because every time I play it, I'm too busy clicking on stuff to get the opportunity to zoom in & look at the battle closely.
Or more honestly, when I do, next time I look at my unit flags, about a third are routing & another third are sitting idle

[Voigtkampf]

Indeed, great reading,Louis de la Ferte Ste Colombe!

I have one question though, forgive me my ignorance; why can a mod be solution for Rome MP? Is it per definitionem “unmoddable”? Currently, my Call of Duty clan plays in several leagues; while some of them play “vanilla” CoD, some of them, for example, use the Total War mod (seriously!) which has altered several important features. One of the added features is the so called “shock effect”; when a grenade falls close to you, but not close enough to kill you, you will experience, next to the health reduce, a short period of a shock that is almost identical to the one Tom Hanks experiences while landing in Normandy in “Shaving Private Ryan’s” – you slow down, your sight blurs, your audio perception will be distorted until the world of sounds returns with that well known whistling of an incoming grenade.

So, out of curiosity and simply because I don’t know, why can’t this be done in Rome MP, as you have indicated?

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Because the mods tend to split the community, not everyone uses them.

[Louis de la Ferte Ste Colombe]

To play a mod, everyone needs to have the same exact mod, with the same exact version.

Many players have tried to mod the game for MP purpose, and although it was interesting to play, it was, from an audience standpoint, a failure. If you have a mod and wants to play it in a 4v4 battle, you may to wait a very long time before finding 7 other players with your mod.

You can blame it on a complacent gaming community not willing to download mods...
Fine, that being said, there are other reasons for that too.
As mentionned above the learning curve for MP is difficult, it's true for control, it's also true for units; if a mod have a lot of units with units behavior changing drastically, it's likely it will scare away potential players as too big a time investement to learn to play it.

It's already difficult to get MP players to download additional maps, and that's a minor mod that does not require additional training. History in MP shows that it's even tougher for units mods.

hoom and Coyote; I fully agree that those problems also exists in SP; after all we do play the same game . I am sure that a SP game with a finger always on the Pause key is not exactly fun. MP just make those problems worse and more obvious.

Louis,

[CBR]

Problem is that the MP community is rather small.

Compared to say a game like CoD with thousands of players you can have several mods even if each only attract say 10% or less. There will be several servers running and enough people to play with.

If not many people have a mod (or mappacks as that was a problem too for MTW) then you cant just host a game and expect it to fill quickly.

So a mod has to be very popular before it gets easy to play it. Or you can find a group of players that wants to play it regularly... but it will still limit the amount of time you can play it as that group in most cases wont be that big.


CBR

[frogbeastegg]

Game too fast? Use pause Before people start throwing stones that's an in-joke.

I'm a compulsive pauser, I have been since the days of STW's demo. I simply cannot keep up without it. Moving and arranging a large army is too fiddly and haphazard without pause, fighting along a large line is too hard, giving orders to many units in a short space of time is too difficult.

I don't want to pause, but it is the only way I can get my army doing what I want it to.

Bad controls + inherant game speed = frustrated frog

I have hopes that RTW will fix the controls, but the Speed? In the demo even with pause I got left behind in 20 unit battles. Bring it down to the same as MTW and I might stand a chance of playing MP if the new controls are good.

[Red Harvest]

As a single player who uses pause, with certainly hundreds if not 4 digit numbers of battles under my belt, I am anti high unit speeds just as much as you MPers.

I use pause particularly so that I can go & zoom in on a bit of the battle, watching my little sprites have at it.
I pause now & then to get an overall look & give some orders that would otherwise not all get done in time.

Its all well & good to say that SPers can just pause & issue new orders, but with such fast units, the whole game becomes a chore of pause, give orders, watch a tiny bit of battle pause, give orders, watch a tiny bit of battle...

I've been particularly disappointed with the demo because every time I play it, I'm too busy clicking on stuff to get the opportunity to zoom in & look at the battle closely.
Or more honestly, when I do, next time I look at my unit flags, about a third are routing & another third are sitting idle

My impression exactly and for the same reasons. Saps all the fun out of it when you can't deploy and watch the engagement while issuing corrective commands in real time (while using pause sparingly to get hold of units in the woods, or mashed into melee etc.) The demo is more PTS (Pause Time Strategy) than RTS.

Even with lots of pausing and winning heavily, I look around to find many units that were fine seconds before, have now routed.

[KyodaiSteeleye]

RE: the pause button, to give a different perspective.

Personally, i've never used the pause button except when called away from the battle - i've always felt that in reality you would never have total, instantaneous control over units, so it is better to play without. Also, the poor AI negates the computer's advantage in being able to have total control over units. Finally, if you want to play MP, being able to keep track of units without pause is a vital skill.

So how does this relate to game speed? - well the game should be designed so that a skilled human general can play without the use of the pause button - after all, the feature of TW battles is their 'Real-timeness' as opposed to a traditional turn-based approach. Good control of units is not 'realistic' but its a damn-sight more fun than anarchy.

Alternatively, the other way of doing RT battles is to have a speed such that overall control is nigh impossible, but have a system where you set up, view the opposing army, and then give units orders before the battle starts, which you can then change as the battle progresses - so meaning that individual unit commanders will follow your set orders until told to do something else - which is 'realistic' and overcomes having units sitting around getting outflanked and generally acting like zombies. To be honest though, i think the former model at a slower speed is more fun.

[ah_dut]

err. guys and frog, we could get a low speed bar which may help if someone wants to mod that in (excuse my ignorance on modding) so 75% or 50% so it would be easier to play then

[Steppe Merc]

I fear it may not be that easy. Besdies, should we have to mod it in? I certantly don't think so, as it's not our fault they seem to think all ancient soldiers had jet packs to make them run so fast.

[Admin]

Because the mods tend to split the community, not everyone uses them.

True, but. There are also people who insist on playing Steppemaps or Castlemaps, just to mention something. I'm not that sure about the difference with a unitmod.

A worst case scenario is: many different mods and the same number of players (and people unwilling/unable/un whatever to play something different).

The different ways to play MP can also attract more players. Whether the new group becomes available as sparring partner for old stylers isn't that important. Would/could be nice, but just the fact that there will be more MP players is something to celebrate. If only because the efforts may increase to make the MP server/code stable.

What's said about the learning curve is true, but the distribution, installation and managing of mods is a problem too. A lot has changed since the first TW title and it's possible, but not optimal. I think mods will get more widely accepted if those things improve.

I also think that a mod should get regularly tweaked/updated. Don't wait 2 months (optimistic) to fix your headache, but tackle the most obvious problem within say 2 hours-days, play it, see what pops up next and fix that (keep the fixes realistical: don't make byz infantry 1,000 florins because they seem slightly overpowered, but add a mere 25 to the 150 and see how it works).

Adding a speedslider for 25-200% of gamespeed like UT has would be great. You don't even have to wait for a mod, just make the right setting. In case there are too much different opinions on 'proper' settings (27%, 27,4% or 28.2%): make/vote for leagues/fans approved settings.

[CBR]

I just see a big problem with just adding a slider to allow for 50% or whatever as marching speed is still the same as in MTW.

We have larger maps now and the slider will reduce the marching speed too. A MP game on such maps would mean a lot of time spent on marching alone.


CBR

[Voigtkampf]

Gentlemen, thank you for your explanation. I am not as familiar with the TW MP community and have thought it to be larger. Also, I thought its participants, because of the nature of the very game, are quite more active than an average FPS MP Community member. In CoD, its simple; ASE offers you a number of games, you chose whether you want to play vanilla ones or modded ones.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

I just see a big problem with just adding a slider to allow for 50% or whatever as marching speed is still the same as in MTW.

We have larger maps now and the slider will reduce the marching speed too. A MP game on such maps would mean a lot of time spent on marching alone.


CBR

The maps are bigger...but the deployment zones are the same size and just as close to eachother I thought?

[CBR]

Deployment zones are pretty big with a small no mans land between them. So fighting could start soon if both deploy forward.

If the defender deploys far back and towards the side or corner of the map there will be some marching. 1000 meters marching or more would be a fair estimate for scenarios like that.


CBR

[Louis de la Ferte Ste Colombe]

Gentlemen, thank you for your explanation. I am not as familiar with the TW MP community and have thought it to be larger. Also, I thought its participants, because of the nature of the very game, are quite more active than an average FPS MP Community member. In CoD, its simple; ASE offers you a number of games, you chose whether you want to play vanilla ones or modded ones.

At best you may see 200 players and, on any week day, it's more around 60, or less depending on your timezone.

In those conditions 4v4 are sometimes difficult to organize, let alone with a mod.

Now, I leave it to you to wonder why the MP MTW community is so small. As mentionned earlier, I think it's very difficult for beginners to control their army at the current MTW speed and that cause many to drop out.

Louis,

[Admin]

I just see a big problem with just adding a slider to allow for 50% or whatever as marching speed is still the same as in MTW.

We have larger maps now and the slider will reduce the marching speed too. A MP game on such maps would mean a lot of time spent on marching alone.

CBR

You need another slider at least: for fatigue.

Marching/manoeuvring is a part of battle.

If that marching is a problem:
-deploy forward.
-play smaller maps.
-use the 80% gamespeed (this is more than just the marching) and increase marching speed in the stats.

[Voigtkampf]

At best you may see 200 players and, on any week day, it's more around 60, or less depending on your timezone.

Well, let us hope that will change with Rome.

Now, I leave it to you to wonder why the MP MTW community is so small. As mentionned earlier, I think it's very difficult for beginners to control their army at the current MTW speed and that cause many to drop out.

Louis,

I believe that the TW MP community is so small because it takes truly dedicated players that are willing and, most important, able to grasp the overall depth and fascination of this game.

[CBR]

You need another slider at least: for fatigue.

Marching/manoeuvring is a part of battle.

If that marching is a problem:
-deploy forward.
-play smaller maps.
-use the 80% gamespeed (this is more than just the marching) and increase marching speed in the stats.

Maps are still twice as big as default MTW maps so deploying forward (as we already do in MTW) still means longer time to march

All maps in RTW are most likely same size so you cant just pick a small map without a custom map. Same thing in MTW as only a few of the historical battle maps were small.

And now we are talking mods if you want to change marching speed.

I guess it would be nice to be able to pick from None/Half/Normal fatigue.


CBR

[Nigel]

In spite of CBR's valid comment, I think a speedslider for 25-200% of gamespeed would be our best un-modded bet (short of CA doing a run-speed reduction for the vanilla version, of course). Those who appreciate a well controlled battle may not mind the long marching so much (time to talk taktics) and those who want a fast battle can have that, too.


As for "a mod should get regularly tweaked/updated", this can actually be another reason why mods are so difficult to distribute. I found myself often thinking: "shall I download this mod? Well, they are still working on it, lets wait for the next version". It may be only me, but I do think that for a mod to easily distribute, you have to be confident that "this is what everyone is gonna use".

[CBR]

Nigel: and for that Im gonna unsticky your Bandits and Mercenaries!

Yes a mod basically has to be made public (after beta testing) in one final version, cant have new versions coming out all the time. Of course there is always room for a 1.1 but thats it. CA's policy of one patch only is great


CBR

[Puzz3D]

Now, I leave it to you to wonder why the MP MTW community is so small. As mentionned earlier, I think it's very difficult for beginners to control their army at the current MTW speed and that cause many to drop out.

Louis,

Well, the number of players that drop out because they can't control their army will probably be less than the number that continue playing because of the improved graphics. This will allow Creative Assembly to take the position that the gameplay has improved. I wouldn't be surprised if 25, 000 danarii per player, which allows maxing out all the upgrades, became the standard of play.

[shingenmitch2]

Nice post Louis,
I'd add another aspect -- the rate of killing. If the rate of FRONTAL killing is too fast, this can kill tactics as well. No point trying to flank when your main line is gone in 10 seconds.


CBR -- I have absolutely no problem with long marches to set up a battle. That would invite a flow to the game where even defenders might have to march to join each other.
In MP I have as much, if not more fun, with the "pre-main-battle" skirmishing than the actual full clash. Whittling an enemy down and maneuvering his army into a corner can often be more satisfying than the final assault.

Yuuk -- sadly, I fear ur correct. And in that other post, ur observation that CA likes both ends of the arguement (pro-historical when it suits them, pro-game-play when that fits better) is something that I've not consciously noted, but has been a bad taste I hadn't been able to put my finger on.

[alioven]

The game .exe file includes strings that hint there will be available a speed control for multiplayer games: normal, double, 3 times (or total madness). From the strings read there, all players have to agree on speed setting, so they could accelerate the "marching" phase if they wish.

That would solve the problem with slow units after a mod.

In the other hand, the map size in RTW is free, from "battle in my little garden" where you have no room for 40 units (2 armies) up to "Siberia battle" where you don't see a pixel of your foe. Try it in a modded battle and you will see the difference.

This would help with the fatigue problem. We need fatigue, so it's better to adjust the speed and length to walk rather than eliminating one of those factors, imho.

[Doug-Thompson]

I'm single-player only, but am surprised at how little discussion there has been on this thread about time: Not rate or speed, but the actual amount of time needed to finish a battle.

My impression of the TW game-playing community is that they are a far more patient group of people than your average online player.

"Age of Kings," for instance, was very popular. My impression is that going from a Dark Age village to finishing the final battle in AoK took less time than a single battle in MTW.

A mad rush where everything is decided in a single collision between "perfect" army combos is, possibly, just fine with the vast majority of on-line game players.

It's not fine with me. Hopefully, there will be some options and adjustments to be made.

However, as long as the relative speeds of units are in line, I'm not overly worried about how quickly units cover ground. As long as my infantry is as fast as the other guy's, for instance, I might not like the "Speedy Gonzales" effect but can live with it.

[Puzz3D]

I'm single-player only, but am surprised at how little discussion there has been on this thread about time: Not rate or speed, but the actual amount of time needed to finish a battle.

That's why it hardly makes sense to me to go into overdrive speedwise during the melee. That phase represents a small fraction of the overall time of a battle even in online play. It's almost as though the running speed was increased just so routed units would leave the map faster. However, we already have a solution for that online. Players simply rout all their units when they no longer have a chance of winning. That ends the battle immediately before the units even leave the map.

[CBR]

CBR -- I have absolutely no problem with long marches to set up a battle. That would invite a flow to the game where even defenders might have to march to join each other.
In MP I have as much, if not more fun, with the "pre-main-battle" skirmishing than the actual full clash. Whittling an enemy down and maneuvering his army into a corner can often be more satisfying than the final assault.

And Im just saying that it will take around twice as long with the maps we have in RTW and that making a speedslider to go down to say 50% will make it even longer as inf/cav would walk at half the rate we have in MTW. So just adding that to "fix" the problem without doing anything to the run speeds is not that good IMO


CBR

[shingenmitch2]

Well Fatigue is another issue, but I've always thought that simple marching or standing shouldn't increase the fatigue. I know there is a level of reality to that incurring fatigue, but from a game/balance/play standpoint I think only fighting, running and severe weather should increase the fatigue.

----

CB. other than the fatigue incurred by walking, I have no prob with doubling the amount of marching/game-time for a battle... but I realize little Bobby who this game is designed for now does not have attention span for that.

I guess I wish CA had built in 2 settings, Fun and Ultra real (with real units, faction composition, unit names, and further push the old game-system for realistic AND SLOW play.)