Battle speed

[Templar Knight]

Over at the Sega USA website I noticed that under battles it said 'quicker pace' - I hope it means that combat is quicker not the time taken to fight them.

Bigger and better battles: Improved combat choreography, larger armies, quicker pace, and spectacular finishing moves make this the most visceral and exciting Total War ever.

I also noticed bow stings

http://www.sega.com/games/game_temp....eval2&id=hp_mp

[Kraxis]

Oh no... Please no... Please let it just be something that does not involve the actual fighting!!!

Urgh... I... I feel faint of heart... Need medicine... No, a defibrilator!

[Templar Knight]

It might mean the speed of the swings and blocks etc - I hope

[Kraxis]

Slower CA... SLOWER!!!! Not faster! You are killing us here... Ok, you are killing ME, but that is bad enough (yes I'm important).

This would be a really great time for a dev to step in and reassure me that the combat will indeed take longer than 30 seconds after impact.

Get a grip on yourself!

*Grips myself*

Good... Well no, but there is nothing more than a single little line saying something like 'faster pace', could mean anything and we, and especially me, shouldn't get worked up yet. But it is certainly not good news.

[econ21]

Don't panic - quicker paced may refer to the campaign speed. RTW campaigns are faster than STW and MTW campaigns, I think, but still very long and IMO lacking pace. The mods that slow down the battles - RTR and EB - are even more glacial at the level of the campaign. (I think EB requires about 1000 turns to get the Marian reforms.) By contrast, I think BI was a step in the right direction with less provinces, a shorter campaign and big unpredictable threatening hordes (I've nothing against a mega-campaign, but give us the options of more bite-sized ones too).

I've been playing Civ4 and although it is also lengthy (on epic/huge), it manages to be more tense and exciting ("one more turn") than TW. I'd like to see more done to get the "fewer and more decisive" battles we were promised in RTW. Fewer skirmishes (especially with spawning rebels) and no contest sieges.

Of course, a key way Civ4 maintains the tension is by having an AI that really breathes down your neck. TW needs a little more of that element of danger. IMO, the threat from AI factions in the campaigns has progressively diminished as we've moved from STW to MTW to RTW. Of course, we'd love cleverer AI but in the absence of that raising the AI threat may just require more Civ style cheats to boost the AIs resources. (EB has recognised that with the scripts to keep replenishing the AIs coffers).

[Templar Knight]

You might be right, however the sentence was to do with the 3D battles not the overall game.

[Reenk Roink]

Don't kill me, but I liked the speed of the RTW battles, and actually wouldn't mind if they were a tad bit quicker...

[Papewaio]

Oh no... Please no... Please let it just be something that does not involve the actual fighting!!!

Urgh... I... I feel faint of heart... Need medicine... No, a defibrilator!

Stat!

Clear!!!

I'll do the heart massage ... could someone else do the mouth to mouth on sleeping beauty . Please.

[Martok]

Don't kill me, but I liked the speed of the RTW battles, and actually wouldn't mind if they were a tad bit quicker...

[Martok comes at Reenk Roink with a club] Hold still! I promise I'll be quick.


Seriously, though, shorter battles would be very very bad. I admittedly could usually do without the epic 5-10 hour-long battles we sometimes have in Medieval, but I was very dismayed that most battles in Rome didn't last more than 5 minutes or so.

[Efrem]

Stat!

Clear!!!

I'll do the heart massage ... could someone else do the mouth to mouth on sleeping beauty . Please.

PLEASE GIVE US BACK THE SPEED BAR!!! :(

[hrvojej]

I really think that they should include a slower battle speed option, along with other similar things. I have no doubt that there will be options for arcade battles and such, and I don't mind if the default setting will be arcadish, but only as long as there is an option to make it *less* arcadish too. I think this time around we who want those options (again, options - make the defaults appeal to a wider audience) should really get them.

[sapi]

Oh no... Please no... Please let it just be something that does not involve the actual fighting!!!

Urgh... I... I feel faint of heart... Need medicine... No, a defibrilator!

qft

Don't kill me, but I liked the speed of the RTW battles, and actually wouldn't mind if they were a tad bit quicker...

Go back to a real rts, not a total war game...

Something like the rtr system would suit me...

[Zatoichi]

Well, it's possible they mean faster paced compared to the original MTW - just like RTW was. However, this is still not good, but a darned sight better than faster paced compared to RTW. The very first thing I did after playing RTW for an hour was mod the battle movement speeds down, and increase the morale of all units to stop insta-routs. I hope I don't need to do this again with M2TW...

Slower is better!

[Weebeast]

They probably mean there will be less empire-managing or something. We war in a quicker pace, no? Build army a year and fight 100 years.

-edit- Nevermind. I didn't realize it was under "battle."

[sapi]

They probably mean there will be less empire-managing or something. We war in a quicker pace, no? Build army a year and fight 100 years.

-edit- Nevermind. I didn't realize it was under "battle."

Yeah - they'd not dare try that!

It better be slow and tactical (compared to rtw) with a decent ai though...

[x-dANGEr]

Can I understand what's so bad about short battles? And who said they are short anyway, try an infantry to infantry battle and see how much will it hold. And the sollution to this problem, is improve the A.I. Go play some MP, the easiest game would take 20 mins.. I can't understand what do you mean by a slower battle..

[Mount Suribachi]

One of the communities biggest (and ongoing) problems with RTW is that compared to MTW and STW the battles are much shorter in length. Movement speeds are faster, killing rates are faster, units route quicker. Even battles between 2 full stacks rarely last more than 10 minutes. Whereas in MTW a battle between 2 full stacks could last 30 minutes or more, with the battle ebbing and flowing. With RTW, the lines meet, fight for a few seconds, then one side chain routes. I've not even come close to the epic 3 and 4 hour fights I had in MTW whilst playing RTW. Battles that will live long in the memory.

Like most MTW and STW vets I miss those epic battles in RTW, and I am apprehensive at this talk of a quicker pace in MTW2...

[doc_bean]

Let's just hope this is what CA told the marketing guys to shut them up, and they're actually making a deep, tactical, battle system.

I don't think you can sell 'slow' to your average marketing guy, but then, most of them probably never played a Total War game either...

[Gustav II Adolf]

Pleeease CA and Sega!

Less is more!

I like the speed as it was in MTW. In RTW i found the battle speeds a bit too fast. Over all the game improves if the suspense is allowed to grow before the battle. Well into the fighting there should be room for tactical maneuvers. It´s all about balancing, i know. I just dont like when a game becomes repetitive or when someone believes exlusively that more of the same more intense makes it better.

[Ciaran]

One of the reasons the MTW battles last so blasted long is the reinforcement system. The units come in stacks one after another instead all at once. And honestly, I much more like the all-at-once Rome battles.
However, I do agree that the actual movement and fighting speed in Rome is a bit too fast, things tend to get a bit too hectic.

[Kraxis]

Ahh it is nice that somebody cares if I live or not, but honestly I'm a little disappointed nobody would give mouth to mouth... I mean I have brushed my teeth two weeks ago.

I don't think you can sell 'slow' to your average marketing guy, but then, most of them probably never played a Total War game either...

Of course you can't, that is why you would use 'Epic' instead.

I can still remember a lot of battles in MTW or STW where most of my army wasrouted and I had only a few units that I had managed to rally left, all of them depleted, tired and in not too good a mood. Then the enemy would come at me and we would fight on and on and on until I would realize that it served no purpose anymore.

That can't happen in RTW.

[Zatoichi]

They should also bring back individual units' ability to rally rather than having it just in the general's hands. Many's a MTW battle where I would be desperately waiting to rally a unit which might just be able to turn the tide. That didn't happen in RTW, which was that game's loss.

Seriously though, we need confirmation that this is just marketing speak, and not a fundamental rejigging of the engine - faster paced battles is just not what I want to hear. What's the point of the lovely new graphics and fancy motion-captured animations if the battles are too fast to enjoy them?

[Templar Knight]

I expect we will know more in PC Zone's 'first look' on February 2nd

Followed by a preview in PC Gamer in March

[x-dANGEr]

Man, you guys are too free or.. :S

Are R: TW battles fast in Huge scale as in Normal? Frankly, from the ashes of M: TW remaining in my head, I do remember battles being slow, but like I don't care. Wheather they are fast or slow, I'll still get the fun, and the result will still be the same. Won't it?

[Doug-Thompson]

To be precise, I don't think people want slowness just for slowness' sake. What I want back is some control.

You don't command as much in R:TW. You deploy your toops and click attack. It's not quite like the same as using auto-resolve and getting to watch, but it's too close.

Sure, command and control was limited in the Medieval Era. However, at least you had time to spring a trap or watch for a gap in the line and go charging in with your knights.

The excitement of striking at just the right moment is what I miss in R:TW. It still happens, sometimes, but not often enough.

[Oaty]

They should also bring back individual units' ability to rally rather than having it just in the general's hands. Many's a MTW battle where I would be desperately waiting to rally a unit which might just be able to turn the tide. That didn't happen in RTW, which was that game's loss.

I'm a bit against that. Plus RTW's rally style is much more historically accurate, and as much heat CA gets............

Anyways a question for someone who's played some of the mods with reduced kill rates while also stretching there system. To me it seems I can get more troops on the battlefield with RTR before the lag kicks in as opposed to vanilla. I'm not saying this is fact but I'm suspicous RTR takes more units to lag. Cavalry have a fast kill rate but most infantrys kill rate is reduced by over one third in RTR. So on average theres up to over 50 percent less calculations the processor has to calculate wich ups the performance. Since MTW 2 is claiming much more epic battles without probably upping the system requirements by much (I hope). So one way to increase troop count is to make the calculations needed per second less. So for MTW2's engine the calculations are probably reduced, but the chances to kill could be increased.

Anyways the way it's stated could mean multiple things such as instead of fighting a bunch of small stacks fighting your way to a city you could find 1 major battle where either the A.I. keeps marching thier army away from yours in the case of defeat while gaining reenforcements or you are retreating yours in the case of defeat while being persued.

1 major battle is a quicker pace than 5 or 6 small battles

Anyways RTW's kilm rate is a little fast but acceptable for me but it's the way routers = instadeath that bothers me.

[Reenk Roink]

I give in, you should all enjoy the longer battles, I'll admit, I like them as well, but in Rome there were just so many friggin' battles that it really got boring quick. I just hope the AI is improved so that battles actually matter, and you are not bombarded with 1/4 full stacks every turn...

And anyways, there's still the speed up .

[Quietus]

Three main problems of the RTW battlefield IMO:

1) High unit speed (unrealistic acceleration included).
2) High kill-rate (including unbalanced units).
3) Small useable map area ( there's no room to maneuver, march, hide or even rally - if even possible).

[AquaLurker]

Have anyone notice the "1 player offline, 6 player online" under multiplayer features in the link? I hope they are not saying max 6 player online again...I love 4v4s and if possible 5v5 6v6 7v7 8v8!!!

[Sardo]

This was posted at the .com forums by CA staff:

Hi Guys,

Just to clarify, M2 battles haven’t been sped up or turned into an arcade game. The pace of combat on the battlemaps is comparable to previous TW games.
I think that may have been some miss-wording on the PR’s Behalf.
We do have a lot more animation though, which simply beefs up the realism aspect of combat in the battlemaps. Single units now track and acquire targets on the battlefield before engaging and have a range of moves to be used depending on the situation. Finishing moves refers to the way in which a single unit decides to kill their opposition. I wouldn’t relate it to an arcade fighting game at all.
We actually employed some historical actors to help out with the fight sequencing to allow our animators to deliver more realistic looking battlefields. They left behind some cool practice weapons as well which is really useful for ‘motivating’ the artists ;)

In short, death to PR people.