BI Demo Comments

[Enjoi_BlackHawk]

first thing i noticed is that units seem faster, way faster, the actually battle only lasted me 1 minute tops, the AI seemingly have gotten better, in the hunnic battle i watched the friendly AI get horses in there rear that hid in the forest (where they hid another one....i found myself with a small unit of elite hunnic whatevers on my back) Horses still to powerfull and horses are also too dumb, in the description they say that some horses are afraid of spears, i wanted to see if they did it...they didnt....

[Duke John]

Red Harvest, I meant it was nonsense that they needed to rebuilding the game. All that need to be done is taking all the running/charging animations and edit them a bit so that they cover less distance in a single animation cycle. As a result units will run slower.

I believe that there is a mod who adds an overhand hoplite animation. I can't understand why someone would make that animation but avoids editing running speed since that has a much greater impact on the enjoyment of the game. Editing descr_battlemap_movement is a bad fix IMO since it also means that units walk slower and that means fixing by breaking things.

[King Ragnar]

Blackhawk i find it a very immpossible that a battle only lasted 1 minute. It would take one minute to get your army engaged with the other nevermind the fightinh taking place.

[Squirrel_of_hatred]

Ok so ive downloaded the file and unzipped it ive got a bunch of files. Now what do i do do i copy the files somewhere??

[King Ragnar]

Ther should be a symbol like the old Rome one just click on that and the game should run.

[Enjoi_BlackHawk]

Blackhawk i find it a very immpossible that a battle only lasted 1 minute. It would take one minute to get your army engaged with the other nevermind the fightinh taking place.

im talking about the actuall fighting, where my units engaged there units

[Tux]

Red Harvest, I meant it was nonsense that they needed to rebuilding the game. All that need to be done is taking all the running/charging animations and edit them a bit so that they cover less distance in a single animation cycle. As a result units will run slower.

I believe that there is a mod who adds an overhand hoplite animation. I can't understand why someone would make that animation but avoids editing running speed since that has a much greater impact on the enjoyment of the game. Editing descr_battlemap_movement is a bad fix IMO since it also means that units walk slower and that means fixing by breaking things.

If they slow down the animations this means they will have to rebalance the game after them, since the units die to fast it would unbalance the game,and example if you hide your cavalry away in the woods far away from the main army when they would arrive it would be to late if the anims are to slow, so it's not fully BS,but they could have gave us a way to to slow them down, an animation tool or something. As for the anims mod, what would be the use if you slow down a skeleton if all others are to quick, if you wan't to do it right then you must do all animations and this would take enourmous time to do. Anyway you should check the bi anim pack you'll see that they did started something, to little but still(maybe more in BI?!), here are some slow new anims:
bi/data/animations/fs_semi_fast_dagger_run.CAS
bi/data/animations/fs_semi_fast_javelinman_run.CAS
bi/data/animations/fs_semi_fast_swordsman_run.CAS
bi/data/animations/fs_slow_2handed_run.CAS
bi/data/animations/fs_slow_spearman_run.CAS
bi/data/animations/fs_slow_swordsman_run.CAS
bi/data/animations/horse/fs_cataphract_horse_run.CAS
Those just my thoughts and i do blame CA for making the units move to fast in the first place.

[Little Legioner]

We cannot play the game if it shall be same like the demo. Infantry like marathon runners and cavalry like kawasaki bikes in game. Kill rates are still same, movement speeds faster even RTW, cavalry like unstoppable panzers... Our hopes still bounded to the modding possibilities of BI. I really understand at the moment what was the mean of "tightening" and "polishing" of the tactical stage of BI. Don't miss the point we shall play this battles on 1X1 standart maps this means double the speed of game. Half a minute later our battles will be shut. At the Chalons war was ending in 2 minutes when the battle has started. Just imagine tiny ones

[Intrepid Sidekick]

Hello everyone

Just a few points:

Walking speeds are the same as RTW and actually very realistic. (They are motion captured from a real person walking and are to scale)

Infantry Unit running speeds have been slowed for armoured troops by about 10%. (BTW They are also from motion capture)

Skirmishers move only very slightly slower than before.

There are also different cavalry movement speeds between light, medium and heavy cavalry.

The AI has been improved.

The game unit movements and kill rates haven't sped up, at all, in any area of the game.

Perhaps this perception to the contrary is either as a result of playing modded versions of the RTW game? i.e. where speeds and kill rates have been significantly reduced or a mistaken recollection of the original game speeds?


Intrepid Sidekick

[SpencerH]

Hello everyone

Just a few points:

Walking speeds are the same as RTW and actually very realistic. (They are motion captured from a real person walking and are to scale)

Infantry Unit running speeds have been slowed for armoured troops by about 10%. (BTW They are also from motion capture)

Skirmishers move only very slightly slower than before.

There are also different cavalry movement speeds between light, medium and heavy cavalry.

The AI has been improved.

The game unit movements and kill rates haven't sped up, at all, in any area of the game.

Perhaps this perception to the contrary is either as a result of playing modded versions of the RTW game? i.e. where speeds and kill rates have been significantly reduced or a mistaken recollection of the original game speeds?


Intrepid Sidekick

Glad to see y'all responding. I hope some of the thread comments are helpful.

The walking speeds etc may have been taken from motion capture but the actual speeds are in no way realistic. All you need to do is ask an ex-grunt (such as myself) how fast modern inf units move cross-country while carrying weapons etc. Staying in massed unit formations (such as in TW) will slow things down yet further.

To some extent though, the walking speeds are a moot point. Its a game. If the battles were played with realistic movement speeds many players (especially those who've not had the pleasure of 'humpin their ass through the grass') would complain that they are too slow.

I think the real culprit is the infantry running speed. The last time it I saw a discussion, running inf were clocked at 10mph!!!!! To put it in perspective, thats the speed of an elite modern marathon runner (who is obviously not burdened by helmet, shield, spear etc). Most importantly though, the inf running speed is way too fast in comparison to the cav running speeds. One only has to watch routing inf units outrun pursuing cav to know something is wrong.

[sunsmountain]

No, Intrepid, its merely because of comparing RomeTW to MedievalTW. Medieval units behave like slow moving blocks... they can be easily manipulated and give the AI plenty of time to react, with fewer options to flunk.

I care about a good AI. I dont have doubts you can improve this. But the actual fighting is over pretty fast. Perhaps realistic, but i like a prolonged fight more than a fast one. It allows you to enjoy the fruits of your strategic labour.

I can always increase the hitpoints, so soldiers fight longer & i can enjoy that more, it does theoretically make units like gladiators, arcani, etc less useful.

ps.: Running infantry speeds are indeed quite fast. Consider jogging instead? How long can a soldier run anyway? Was their endurance better back then?

[CBR]

The infantry marching speed for MTW and RTW is the same: around 6 km/h. Yes it is actually too much for a line trying to keep its formation but it works fine for a game. For that matter running/jogging/trotting, or whatever we are gonna call it, doesn't have to be realistic either but its more a question of control.

For standard infantry in MTW "running" speed is 66% faster than marching speed while in RTW its nearly 3 times as fast as marching speed. Overall units in RTW run about 50-60% faster than MTW. Sometimes MTW battles could be a fast clickfest but in RTW its guaranteed.

It is certainly not realistic nor fun for me with so much chaos and clicking.

Funny thing is, at least from the numbers I have, is that in RTW infantry running speeds was increased more than cavalry run speed (60% increase for infantry and only 50% for cavalry)


CBR

[Lonely Soldier]

I just DL'ed and played through the demo then...

All I can say is U G L Y units! OMG they were hideous.

The Franks particularly! Thank God for RTR!

[Puzz3D]

The game unit movements and kill rates haven't sped up, at all, in any area of the game.

Perhaps this perception to the contrary is either as a result of playing modded versions of the RTW game? i.e. where speeds and kill rates have been significantly reduced or a mistaken recollection of the original game speeds?

I play an RTW mod where the movement speed is slowed by 10%. My impression of the BI demo was that at least heavy cavalry was moving about the same speed as in the mod which would be slightly slower than vanilla RTW.

Remember, LongJohn made the argument in MTW that movement speed determines the effective size of the battlefield. Slower movement making the battlefield effectively larger. He refused a request to increase the running speed of cavalry in MTW, which was set at about 15 mph, by even 10%, and he even argued that 15 mph was historically accurate. I can dig out the post if you want it.

Relatively fast movement means you have to separate units by a greater distances, and it therefore takes more time to scroll the camera which makes it more difficult to control all of your units. The Battle of Chalons devolves into total chaos very quickly if you try to make individual unit matchups as the AI is doing. You were able to play by making individual matchups in the Total War games prior to RTW.

The way I got around this fast pace, and the way virtually everyone in multiplayer is coping with this is to use what CeltiMordred calls "snowball" tactics. For instance, as the Huns in the Chalons battle, I put my infantry line in guard mode and put my cavalry into two groups way out on the flanks. Once the Romans charged my line, I swept in with the two groups of cav on each flank. I didn't target any specific enemy units or give any unit specific commands. The battle is effectively reduced to 3 things to control, and that's how you keep up with the speed at which things are happening. In multiplayer, it's even more simplified as players are mostly using only two "snowballs"; one to engage frontally and the other to flank. In singleplayer, you have an AI that's trying to make individual matchups, and doesn't recognize the threat from massed groups sweeping in from the flanks.

At least with mods which slow fighting and movement, you can get back to a gameplay that allows giving orders to the individual units at the height of the battle. The mod I use only slows movement by 10%, but when coupled with a slowdown in fighting speed it allows a player to issue more movement orders to individual units which makes maneuver of individual units more important and increases the tactical complexity of the game. The AI copes well with this because it's trying to do the same thing.

[Little Legioner]

Remember, LongJohn made the argument in MTW that movement speed determines the effective size of the battlefield. Slower movement making the battlefield effectively larger. He refused a request to increase the running speed of cavalry in MTW, which was set at about 15 mph, by even 10%, and he even argued that 15 mph was historically accurate. I can dig out the post if you want it.

Relatively fast movement means you have to separate units by a greater distances, and it therefore takes more time to scroll the camera which makes it more difficult to control all of your units. The Battle of Chalons devolves into total chaos very quickly if you try to make individual unit matchups as the AI is doing. You were able to play by making individual matchups in the Total War games prior to RTW.

That's the point! Balancing the speeds crucially bound with battlemaps effectiveness. Ta da! Thank you PUZZ 3D! You expanded the critical subject.

An please mate dig it and post it the message. I guess we need some a succeed reference to get a clear stance.

[Ludens]

The infantry marching speed for MTW and RTW is the same: around 6 km/h. Yes it is actually too much for a line trying to keep its formation but it works fine for a game. For that matter running/jogging/trotting, or whatever we are gonna call it, doesn't have to be realistic either but its more a question of control.

For standard infantry in MTW "running" speed is 66% faster than marching speed while in RTW its nearly 3 times as fast as marching speed. Overall units in RTW run about 50-60% faster than MTW. Sometimes MTW battles could be a fast clickfest but in RTW its guaranteed.

It is certainly not realistic nor fun for me with so much chaos and clicking.

I agree. It doesn't have to be 100% realistic, as long as it's controlable. One of the things I enjoyed about M:TW and S:TW was the slow pace of the battles, whereas in R:TW once combat is engaged it's over so fast that there is little you can do to influence it.

Melee killing rates may be the same as in M:TW, but that does not explain why I always manage to annihilate the enemy army. Once the battle lines are joined it is too easy to roll up the enemy line with cavalry charges from the flanks. And routing units, especially infantry, lose men very quickly.

I play an RTW mod where the movement speed is slowed by 10%. My impression of the BI demo was that at least heavy cavalry was moving about the same speed as in the mod which would be slightly slower than vanilla RTW.

You have mentioned this mod before. Where can it be found?

[Red Harvest]

Remember, LongJohn made the argument in MTW that movement speed determines the effective size of the battlefield. Slower movement making the battlefield effectively larger.

Yes, and there is always going to be a scaling problem until the game can support tens of thousands of men on each side at a time. The scaling problem is "aspect ratio" and the difficulty of turning large formations. The typical RTW formation is about 1/5th to 1/10th as wide as it would need to be. Running laterally accross the field should be incredibly difficult to do mid battle. Rotating would have similar limitations, since the folks on the outside of the formation must walk much further, thereby limiting formation turning speed.

The scaling aspects present trouble for using a full motion video capture approach to the game.