crappy battle speeches

[frogbeastegg]

I had one speech in my current Brutii game which was so good it could have been written specially and intentionally for the battle I was about to fight. My famous hero of a general and his small army of hardened veterans against a Macedonian horde of at least 22 full units of light lancers and assorted phalanx troops. I had 11 units, mostly hastati, and it was obvious I was going to be massacred.

The speech lasted for a long time, about two minutes and every single word was so ... apt. My general broke out the old "Friends, Romans, countrymen" thing. He talked of how poor the omens were, but how brave men made their own destinies, and today was a day for great deeds. He accused the Macedonians of fearful cowardice for bringing fully half their army to face my men. He spoke of past victories, of home, of loved ones who they might not see again. Roman pride, and Roman arms, and Roman steel; and how a good death was worth more than a shameful life. Finally he finished on a note eerily familiar from the credits song, "And remember, the Roman Gods are watching - make sure they are not ashamed!"

That sold me on the speech aspect; I love it. It was so hard to believe that brilliant speech had been pieced together from singe lines of dialogue; it felt like someone had written it specially for this battle.

I wish I could have kept a replay of that battle, along with the speech. A salute: to my army, each and every man dead in honourable combat having taken at least one enemy down with each of them.

Today’s lesson: paved roads in enemy territory allow armies to spring up from what seems like nowhere. Use more than two spies to scout.

[fastspawn]

i once got a speech where the general not only spoke to give inspiration, but also dissected the enemy forces, and actually gave quite good advice on how to deal with each portion. I have no idea why that occured, was it because he had a spy in the town? was it because of some VnV he had?

I still have no idea.

Anyway, i saw this speech which was rather funny,

I am known as something of a philosopher. Some ask me, 'Why are we here?' The answer is often complicated... but today we are here to kill all those bastards.

I have yet to hear it though.

[Captain Fishpants]

Thanks indeed for the kind words of praise.

The speech system, as you've worked out, uses a phrase bank tied into various aspects of the battle and the general's personality. It took a lot of work to make sure that the individual texts worked together, and keep the comments 'on message'. There are a few funny ones in there because I'm easily tempted into the dark ways of naughtiness... oh yes.

The length and components of a speech are dependent on the number of units present, btw, so for smaller battles you'll here a completely different set of opening remarks.

I had one speech in my current Brutii game which was so good it could have been written specially and intentionally for the battle I was about to fight. My famous hero of a general and his small army of hardened veterans against a Macedonian horde of at least 22 full units of light lancers and assorted phalanx troops. I had 11 units, mostly hastati, and it was obvious I was going to be massacred.

The speech lasted for a long time, about two minutes and every single word was so ... apt. My general broke out the old "Friends, Romans, countrymen" thing. He talked of how poor the omens were, but how brave men made their own destinies, and today was a day for great deeds. He accused the Macedonians of fearful cowardice for bringing fully half their army to face my men. He spoke of past victories, of home, of loved ones who they might not see again. Roman pride, and Roman arms, and Roman steel; and how a good death was worth more than a shameful life. Finally he finished on a note eerily familiar from the credits song, "And remember, the Roman Gods are watching - make sure they are not ashamed!"

That sold me on the speech aspect; I love it. It was so hard to believe that brilliant speech had been pieced together from singe lines of dialogue; it felt like someone had written it specially for this battle.

I wish I could have kept a replay of that battle, along with the speech. A salute: to my army, each and every man dead in honourable combat having taken at least one enemy down with each of them.

Today’s lesson: paved roads in enemy territory allow armies to spring up from what seems like nowhere. Use more than two spies to scout.

[Axeknight]

"Over there stand the Gauls. Mad, dangerous, and hairy beyond reason!"

The 'rousing speech' feature was truly a brilliant idea. I think its great when you get one general talking about the good omens in one battle, and then somewhere else you get "today we make our own destiny, and we are not ruled by the flight of some damned bird!"

[barvaz]

Well, I assume those speeches sit somewhere on the hard disk in some sort of audio format files and are assembled together at runtime. Here is a challenge to the modding community, let’s find someone who speaks perfect Latin with the right Roman accent and do the speeches right as they were supposed to be.

Finding someone who speaks accurate ancient Gaelic would prove to be more difficult though.

- barvaz