FAQ and historical inaccuracies: some odd comments

[BobTheTerrible]

Saying something is possible is a far cry from depicting a unit that regularly uses a weapons system in that fashion in combat. I'm sure it was possible for ancient cavalry archers to ride their horses backwards so they could fire arrows from them. But there is no evidence they did. (The Parthians turned in their saddles, they didn't ride their horses backwards, and they certainly didn't do it regularly.)




Did they do it regularly like they do in the game? Definitely not.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but your main issue here is that CA wouldn't admit it's historically innaccurate. Well, CA never claims it is. All he said was that it was plausable.

[Steppe Merc]

I'd have rejected your insulting proposal too if I had been CA. Everything you've said reeks of your own assumption that CA skimped on the reasearch into the era (for whatever reason from sheer cavalier-ness to economic fesability). A good deal of the EB people have this attitude as well. The fact that CA gave Parthia nothing but shitty infantry and the Greeks no heavy cavalry shows they are commited to a degree of historical accuracy.

And the fact that the Parthians were pathetically purple, of all things means what, pray tell? And what does the fact that the Scythians, who were pretty much displaced at that time by the Sarmatians, wear no shirts in Russia, mean?
And they did skimp. Either they skimped, or worse, they ignored the research for no damn good reason.

P.S. Khelvan wasn't part of the team when we proposed to help CA, so it wasn't his insulting proposal.

[Afro Thunder]

And the fact that the Parthians were pathetically purple, of all things means what, pray tell? And what does the fact that the Scythians, who were pretty much displaced at that time by the Sarmatians, wear no shirts in Russia, mean?
And they did skimp. Either they skimped, or worse, they ignored the research for no damn good reason.

P.S. Khelvan wasn't part of the team when we proposed to help CA, so it wasn't his insulting proposal.

Nah, they were FABULOUSLY purple!

[Simetrical]

I don't know how much we know about carroballistae, but I could well imagine that they wouldn't be designed so as to allow someone to easily hang on and shoot at the same time. If it's not designed to be used while moving, perhaps the wagon-thingy wouldn't have any kind of support for the operator—he'd just stand on the wagon and shoot. If it's moving, bumping around, he'd have to hold on to something, and that would mean he might well be physically incapable of reloading.

So look at this image from Trajan's Column, for instance. There seems to be no room for the operator to stand on the cart at all, and they're pulled by mules, not horses (so they'd be slower). Furthermore, according to this page the carroballista was a two-man weapon, according to this it required six to ten men to fire, and that limits your options even more. If it was already preloaded, I could maybe see the soldiers getting off one shot, but reloading with no supports to hold you in place while you do so would be hopeless—you'd have to hold on with the hands you need for firing.

[Oaty]

As far as the carroballistae firing on the run it has more to do with gameplay. Look at how regular ballistas impact a battle. Fire off 3 to 6 shots and then fall back and have no further impact on the battle, unless you can park them elevated from your troops where they can fire over with little risk of friendly fire. Would yoo really want it to take 15 minutes for the frontline troops to engage. If so then theres agood reason why they should'nt fire on the run, otherwise they need to so it's not a useless unit in your limited stack of 20.

[Hurin_Rules]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but your main issue here is that CA wouldn't admit it's historically innaccurate. Well, CA never claims it is. All he said was that it was plausable.

Do you still think it's plausible after Simetrical's links to the picture and the archaeological research? There's no room for an operator, and no way to reload.

Now I'm even more convinced these things were never fired on the move.

This is, in fact, even more implausible than the flaming pigs. At least those were apparently once used in the fashion depicted.

[barocca]

As far as the carroballistae firing on the run it has more to do with gameplay. Look at how regular ballistas impact a battle. Fire off 3 to 6 shots and then fall back and have no further impact on the battle, unless you can park them elevated from your troops where they can fire over with little risk of friendly fire.
Would you really want it to take 15 minutes for the frontline troops to engage. If so then theres a good reason why they shouldn't fire on the run, otherwise they need to so it's not a useless unit in your limited stack of 20.

i agree with oaty on this,
too often artillery are pretty much useless in field battles, a couple of shots and then they nothing but are weak meelee troops, and a liability at that (too easy to rout).

if you dont like them simply mod your campaign game to exclude them

i still cannot find where CREATIVE ASSEMBLY STAFF said the game was historically accurate,
i CAN FIND plenty of reviewers and fanzine articles making that claim,
i CAN FIND CS Staff calling it a "historical strategy game",
but i cannot find one CA STAFFER claiming it is HISTORICALLY ACCURATE in detail.

B.

[khelvan]

i still cannot find where CREATIVE ASSEMBLY STAFF said the game was historically accurate,

Well, read this, from the Creative Assembly presentation at ECTN:

Creative Assembly were particularly keen to stress the amount of research that went into ensuring a historically accurate representation; including consultation with experts on the time-period. Wherever it doesn't have a detrimental effect on gameplay, the game is as historically accurate as possible, from the types of units available to each faction, the formations available (such as the famous Roman "tortoise"), and the terrain, which has been accurately mapped into the game, covering most of Europe and North Africa.

You now have three choices:
1) CREATIVE ASSEMBLY STAFF said the game was historically accurate
2) IGN lied to its readers, CREATIVE ASSEMBLY STAFF did not say the game was historically accurate
3) IGN was mistaken, CREATIVE ASSEMBLY STAFF did not say these things and were misinterpreted.

Honestly, Barocca, do you feel that either 2) or 3) are even remotely possible? ECTN is a relatively large convention, and IGN is one of the leading publications. Either you must accept that CREATIVE ASSEMBLY STAFF did, in fact say these things, or that a leading industry publication is being purposefully dishonest. If you choose either 2) or 3), I'll have to accept that you're being purposefully dishonest just for the sake of arguing a technicality. They may not have been directly -quoted-, but they did say it.

[KSEG]

1. Yes Tribes is a different type of game - so what? The player dynamics were the same.


2. No I don't hope CA will fail - well not particularly, I am ambivalent about them - I wouldn't particularly care either way at the moment.


3. I addressed this earlier - the new fans are fickle. Out of the ~20 regular gamers I know well, I and one other played TW games - a reasonable proportion of the others liked RTW but in the end gave up because it was not the standard sort of game. It's like why there are/were more people playing CS than Raven Shield, more people playing Battlefield 1942 than Ghost Recon. Games which try to be more realistic than the mainstream will allways have to be content with being in the shadows. Those who move out of the shadows inevitably fail as the 'fun' realism features wear off, and the tiring realism features begin to annoy.


4. I'm so sure because I've been playing games/watching the game industry for 15 years and I've seen many (probably hundreds now) try to do it and fail. If you want more detailed reasons, they can be summarised with one. Money. Actually they may do it - Sega owns them now, so they should have financial weight behind them - but if they do, it will hardly be the Total War series as you know it.


5. (yes I know there isn't a five, but treat it as your last paragraph) - Yes all they have to do to 'win' is make a profit. To make a profit you have to have high sales. Clones of original games rarely have the sales of the originals.


You say trust isn't important? I say it is if you are a small developer trying to work with a small market. If they are looking at a large market, well trust isn't so important. But there are big dogs out there who view that as their own market, and if you start trying to eat into it, they'll respond.

1, unlike tribes TW series was a huge hit from the beggining. Olso you didn't prove the reason why Tribes Vengeance failed was because it became "arcadish".

3,fickle? Then why games like C&C Generals and MTW became a huge hit?
I think you underestimate the intelligence of average gamer.

5, to have a high sales doesn't mean they have to sell more then AOE3.
Besides, how do you even know what next TW game will be?
IMO TW and AOE is on a diffarent table, as long as TW doesn't introduce AOE type gameplay.

6, Who said trust isn't important?
And what do you mean by "they'll respond"?
Are they going to point a gun to CA stuffs and say "stop competing with us, or else"?

[Flippy]

Quote:
Originally Posted by IGN
Creative Assembly were particularly keen to stress the amount of research that went into ensuring a historically accurate representation; including consultation with experts on the time-period. Wherever it doesn't have a detrimental effect on gameplay, the game is as historically accurate as possible, from the types of units available to each faction, the formations available (such as the famous Roman "tortoise"), and the terrain, which has been accurately mapped into the game, covering most of Europe and North Africa.

Please read this quote again. It simply states that they did their research, but choose gameplay over historical accuracy. Nothing more, nothing less.

I don't see in what way this contradicts with what Barocca said.

btw, this tread makes me laugh. Really. You history fanboys are priceless

[barocca]

Originally Posted by IGN...snip...Wherever it doesn't have a detrimental effect on gameplay, the game is as historically accurate as possible

you still have not provided me with a direct quote from a CA staffer claiming the game was flat out historically accurate in detail.
all you are giving is "they said that they said..."

B.

[Puzz3D]

deleted

[barocca]

The delay is 2 seconds to get a stationary unit moving. I've measured it with a stopwatch, and at these cav speeds it means enemy cav can cover a lot of ground before your unit can move.

i agree, 2 seconds.

Allowing RTW to be used in the History Channel's Decisive Battles Program gave the wrong impression about the game. You can't re-enact any of the battles shown in that program with this game. The Battle of Trebia in the RTW demo was scripted to give a false impression that the gameplay was historical; complete with an elaborate historical description of the disposition and tactical capabilities of the two armies. Now either this was all a deliberate hoax or something went horribly wrong during the developement of the game.

was not decisive battles a "recreation" via simulation?
they used RTW engine to recreate what happened,
not unlike ACW re-enactors, sometimes there are far more rebels show up than Fed's, but the rebels still lose?


frankly complaining that the engine cannot "recreate" for players what was a scripted for TV simulation of an historical event is a fraction over the top when it comes to criticising the engine.
B.

[Puzz3D]

deleted

[antisocialmunky]

I don't know how much we know about carroballistae, but I could well imagine that they wouldn't be designed so as to allow someone to easily hang on and shoot at the same time. If it's not designed to be used while moving, perhaps the wagon-thingy wouldn't have any kind of support for the operator—he'd just stand on the wagon and shoot. If it's moving, bumping around, he'd have to hold on to something, and that would mean he might well be physically incapable of reloading.

It really depends on which role you assign it. It could likely be the Roman version of 'Flying Artillery,' towed artillery that can be deployed, fired, and moved, which it would take a team because you would probably use a heavier mount. I wouldn't put it past the Romans and their history of logistical accomplishment that the ability to move artillery from one side of the line to the other would be lost on them.

However, if they really wanted to, repeating ballista with a hopper full of bolts(more than 8, less than 20) that automatically reloads as the operator cranks could be operated a by as few as one man.

I'd think the 'flying artillery' version is more likely because they used mules. In that setup, the mule(s) the 6-10 men it would take to fire a heavier ballista could have ran along side the cart like gun operators ran alongside their artillery pieces during the American Civil War and American-Mexican War. It doesn't bar the fact that the second model could not have been made for harassment.

[Puzz3D]

frankly complaining that the engine cannot "recreate" for players what was a scripted for TV simulation of an historical event is a fraction over the top when it comes to criticising the engine.
B.

Then why did CA publically imply that I was wrong? If their game couldn't do what was being portrayed on TV, they should have been up front about it. Instead they went into damage control mode.

[barocca]

The Battle of Trebia in the RTW demo was scripted to give a false impression that the gameplay was historical; complete with an elaborate historical description of the disposition and tactical capabilities of the two armies. Now either this was all a deliberate hoax or something went horribly wrong during the developement of the game.

if you know how to unpack the pak files from the demo, so that one may go and look at what was scripted and what was not, then please share such information.

if the files cannot be unpacked then speculation on what was, and what was not scripted, remains as speculation only and should not be "bandied around" as inarguable fact

misrepresenting a product (the hoax as you put it) is a criminal offence, i would suggest one be absolutely sure before one starts running around accusing companies of crimes in a public forum (the bigger the company the bigger the lawyers)

I DID NOT LIKE THE DEMO (for rome), gameplay, movement speed and battles were WAY TOO FAST

B.

[barocca]

Then why did CA publically imply that I was wrong? If their game couldn't do what was being portrayed on TV, they should have been up front about it. Instead they went into damage control mode.

i missed that post/thread

please enlighten this poor soul

B.

[CBR]

Hm was that what I used as a signature for a while Yuuki? heh


CBR

[lars573]

And the fact that the Parthians were pathetically purple, of all things means what, pray tell? And what does the fact that the Scythians, who were pretty much displaced at that time by the Sarmatians, wear no shirts in Russia, mean?
And they did skimp. Either they skimped, or worse, they ignored the research for no damn good reason.

P.S. Khelvan wasn't part of the team when we proposed to help CA, so it wasn't his insulting proposal.

It was the colour they choose, which happened to look well let's face it silly on the eastern meat shields and HA but looked great Hillmen and Persian cavalry. As to the shirtless Scythians being in well they aren't gone until 250 BC which means when the game starts in 275 BC it's perfectly allright to have the Scythians. Their shirtlessness is a design ethic applied to all barbarian factions. That being only elite units can have shirts. You'll notice that Gauls are shirtless in France, Germans in Germany, and Britons on Britian. Every time I play as the Britons on Germans in a winter battle I'm think man that could never happen it would be too cold.

[KSEG]

I guess the diffarent color for each faction is to make recognizing the battle easier.
It was same in all previous TW game, although not as vivid as in RTW.
A perfect example is RTR6.0. Every faction uses a same sort of color so in heat of battle it gets quite difficult to see who is who and which is which.
Although I think they could have chosen a better color then purple.

[IceTorque]

It was the colour they choose, which happened to look well let's face it silly on the eastern meat shields and HA but looked great Hillmen and Persian cavalry. As to the shirtless Scythians being in well they aren't gone until 250 BC which means when the game starts in 275 BC it's perfectly allright to have the Scythians. Their shirtlessness is a design ethic applied to all barbarian factions. That being only elite units can have shirts. You'll notice that Gauls are shirtless in France, Germans in Germany, and Britons on Britian. Every time I play as the Britons on Germans in a winter battle I'm think man that could never happen it would be too cold.

Too cold maybe, but did'nt the picts fight naked ?

[TB666]

@the purple parthians debate:I actually think they look cool.
A very bold color.
I can't understand why people complain about faction colors.

[lars573]

Too cold maybe, but did'nt the picts fight naked ?

They could well have, but in winter?, in Scotland?

[khelvan]

btw, this tread makes me laugh. Really. You history fanboys are priceless

Your condescending attitude makes me weep for the state of public schools.

[sik1977]

if you know how to unpack the pak files from the demo, so that one may go and look at what was scripted and what was not, then please share such information.

if the files cannot be unpacked then speculation on what was, and what was not scripted, remains as speculation only and should not be "bandied around" as inarguable fact

misrepresenting a product (the hoax as you put it) is a criminal offence, i would suggest one be absolutely sure before one starts running around accusing companies of crimes in a public forum (the bigger the company the bigger the lawyers)

I DID NOT LIKE THE DEMO (for rome), gameplay, movement speed and battles were WAY TOO FAST

B.

Sorry, couldn't let this one slip. It is not misrepresentation, either for the purposes of Misrepresentation Act 1967 (UK) or in negligence (tort) if at the time Puzz3D made the statement, he honestly believed it to be true.

Misrepresentation is a tricky field, and though I am not a tort expert, I can assure you that a statement or such made in this (public) forum would be very difficult to prove as misrepresentation and thus attracting criminal or other liability in negligence (which is near impossible as damage has to be shown and remoteness considered etc. ect.), no matter how good the lawyers are...

I think the best thing is to stay off such legal warnings etc. and find better ways to dispute someones statements.

[Zenicetus]

@the purple parthians debate:I actually think they look cool.
A very bold color.
I can't understand why people complain about faction colors.

The problem (for me, anyway) is not that factions have identifying colors, it's that the colors are often too saturated and too bright. When the designers go too far in that direction, the screen starts to look like a cartoon instead of something approaching what the real thing would have looked like.

The ancient world didn't have an endless selection of dye and paint colors to choose from, and soldiers' uniforms don't look bright and fresh after a months long march through a dusty desert. Toning down the palette saturation just a little bit, while still keeping the identifying colors, would make the game look more realistic. In my opinion.

[player1]

That's why I like the looks of barbarian captain skin in BI demo (the brown dude).

It has some faction colors, but is not totaly painted, so he looks better them most other units.

[Nelson]

This line from CA: “Wherever it doesn't have a detrimental effect on game play, the game is as historically accurate as possible” reminds me of the 2nd Amendment to the US Constitution. People like to quote the latter half of the sentence and ignore the critical supporting clause.

Any deviation from history in the game can be said to enhance game play. Since good game play is so very subjective, disagreements are inevitable. CA knew that Egypt was Greek in 200BC but deliberately put in the Rameses look believing that it would improve the appeal for many gamers. Hence enhancing the game play for buyers who expect Egyptians to look like Pharaohs. We accurites don’t like such decisions but we’re stuck. It’s a game, not a simulation. CA has been up front about that from Shogun onward. They include a heavy dose of reality just the same. Enough, IMO, to warrant their claims of accuracy to a large degree. Regarding history, I think CA gets a lot more right than wrong and when they are wrong I believe they usually know it. If you want to believe that CA has sinned, then they are sins of commission. I suspect that the historians at CA do fight the good fight over these issues, winning some and losing some according to somebody’s idea of playability.

[Mongoose]

Please read this quote again. It simply states that they did their research, but choose gameplay over historical accuracy. Nothing more, nothing less.

I don't see in what way this contradicts with what Barocca said.

btw, this tread makes me laugh. Really. You history fanboys are priceless

You CA fanboys are priceless

How does it hurt gameplay to have egypt LOOK Greek?

How does it improve gameplay to have almost the same standard set of units for the "barbs"???

Your condescending attitude makes me weep for the state of public schools.