CA, Keep the Dates on the Turns!

[Ignoramus]

Let's make CA see, that we won't accepted numbered turns. We want historical dates per turn. I.e. 1080, 1081, 1082, not Turn 1, Turn 2, Turn 3. Vote.

[screwtype]

I don't care whether they have dates or not.

[Kraxis]

I don't care whether they have dates or not.

And here I was about to ask "Who is going to be the first to select yes" with a bit of irony. Well, while there is no 'yes' yet, I see I was quite wrong in my estimate.

[screwtype]

I didn't vote because my preferred choice of "Gah!" wasn't available...

[Keba]

I say years, not labeling things with turn numbers. I suppose I am a bit conservative, having been playing since Shogun, but I am determined I will have years in my games, even if I have to mod them in myself.

[Antiochius]

i have chosen the years, because it is more realistic to know in which year ayou are playing at the moment. Besides the atmosphere will be destroyed by such things

[Orda Khan]

i have chosen the years, because it is more realistic to know in which year ayou are playing at the moment. Besides the atmosphere will be destroyed by such things

Very true I whole heartedly agree.......The result so far speaks for itself

......Orda

[Kraxis]

I say years, not labeling things with turn numbers. I suppose I am a bit conservative, having been playing since Shogun, but I am determined I will have years in my games, even if I have to mod them in myself.

I'm afraid that mgiht be a problem.
If the turns truly do not last 1 year or half a year or something like that, I fear putting in dates will just give you a wrong feeling of history. Meaning that the dates will pop up as 1080-1081-1082 ect. While they should have been 1080-1082-1084 ect.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Atmosphere is everything! Gimme dates!

Civilization doesn't use 'turn number 1 through 400'. They use dates, with intervals ranging from 50 to 1 years., i.e. 3950 B.c. - 3900 B.c. - 3850 B.c.; 1750-1752-1754 and 1921-1922-1923. Works perfectly.

[Keba]

I'm afraid that mgiht be a problem.
If the turns truly do not last 1 year or half a year or something like that, I fear putting in dates will just give you a wrong feeling of history. Meaning that the dates will pop up as 1080-1081-1082 ect. While they should have been 1080-1082-1084 ect.

I posted that hoping that they will actually have at the least 1 turn=1 year, I would like more, of course, I would be ecstatic with 4 turns/year.

IMO, 225 turns is not nearly enough. I am a player who always started in the Early age in MTW, playing all the way through to the Late. With RTW, I played slow as well, in vanilla by 200 BC, I had only captured 3 provinces with the Julii, despite achieving Marian reforms.

I am hoping that they add the idea from Civ 4 ... game pace. I want an epic, long marathon lasting seemingly forever. Others may want a short 225 turn game. It would be nice to offer a choice of pace. They have already done it (that is, offered choices) with RTW, with the Arcade/Realistic battle choices, I'm hoping that they take it a step further.

[TB666]

I voted yes because there wasn't a "don't care" option.
I never bothered with dates and in MTW always started from the early era.
But I'm a slow builder so the thing I'm worried about is the 225 turns.
If you can mod this then I'm fine with it, the same with the date/turn thing.

Edit: ooppss I noticed that I voted wrong.
One less for No and one more for Yes

[Quietus]

i have chosen the years, because it is more realistic to know in which year ayou are playing at the moment. Besides the atmosphere will be destroyed by such things

Then, you've ticked the wrong selection since you've answered "Yes".

[Duke John]

I voted yes. I could never be bothered to play 500, 1000 or even more turns. I can not believe why some are suggesting a 4 turn per year system for a 500 year period, it is insane. I want to play a campaign where each turn could be entry in a chronology of my empire. I have enough imaginition to imagine one turn being 5 years or another 5 weeks. If CA could come with a piece of code that adds the town/region, month and year to the title of the current battle it would give me enough anchoring into a timeline.
I would much rather play a campaign with 30 battles that mattered in 200 turns than 1000 turns with 150 battles that were needed to make the player do something. Quality over quantity.

[Kraxis]

Ah, but DJ do you honestly prefer Turn 1 over 1080?

[Prince Cobra]

Who was that 'genius' who decided to use Turns 1 ,Turns 2 , Turns 3???????
Maybe the history of the world starts from 1080???????
I don't even want to think about such a variant.

[hellenes]

I voted yes. I could never be bothered to play 500, 1000 or even more turns. I can not believe why some are suggesting a 4 turn per year system for a 500 year period, it is insane. I want to play a campaign where each turn could be entry in a chronology of my empire. I have enough imaginition to imagine one turn being 5 years or another 5 weeks. If CA could come with a piece of code that adds the town/region, month and year to the title of the current battle it would give me enough anchoring into a timeline.
I would much rather play a campaign with 30 battles that mattered in 200 turns than 1000 turns with 150 battles that were needed to make the player do something. Quality over quantity.

What about 4 starting periods with 4 turns per year each?
Doesnt AUtumn/Winter/Spring/Summer affect gameplay in a huge way? With the harvest affecting ecomony, winter affecting movement or even warfare and rainy Spring/Autumn affecting battles?
I would LOVE 4 turns per year if the game was split in starting periods.

Hellenes

[screwtype]

I have enough imaginition to imagine one turn being 5 years or another 5 weeks. If CA could come with a piece of code that adds the town/region, month and year to the title of the current battle it would give me enough anchoring into a timeline.

Yeah, that's pretty much my point. While I don't know enough about the proposed new system to make a judgement, I can imagine other ways of mapping the chronology than what we have now, and I'm willing to give CA the benefit of the doubt until I see what they actually come up with.

[doc_bean]

I'm for a Civ like numbering system, although the 'adaptive turn' system mentioned by A. Saturnus and a few others could be superior if done right.

[screwtype]

I'm for a Civ like numbering system, although the 'adaptive turn' system mentioned by A. Saturnus and a few others could be superior if done right.

I haven't seen his post. Can you provide a link to it?

[Viking]

A most peculiar move by CA. Most unwanted as well.

[aw89]

Make that a plus one on no, and minus one on yes. (I pressed the wrong one)

I hope that they atleast make it modable.

[Geoffrey S]

Yes. Having given it some thought I think I can see where this is going, and I like it.

The way it's been described makes it seem like you give your orders to units and things move on until something happens, such as an army reaching its destination or diplomatic actions; management could be done at any time. Hence, dates have no meaning when it comes to turns since turns wouldn't last a particular amount of time. If dates are used it'd purely be for atmospheric reasons but wouldn't have a gameplay purpose: one turn could be half a year, or four years depending on how long it takes for something to occur. There'd be no fixed end date, it'd just end at turn 225 which could be anywhere depending on the time between turns.

That's the way it sounds to me, and if so it sounds good. It's good to see Wikiman and co. even making these posts and also keeping polite. It's more than I could do when working on a presumably tight schedule or faced with rather rude reactions questioning their mental capabilities.

[A.Saturnus]

I haven't seen his post. Can you provide a link to it?

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=61977

I didn't vote because I don't know what a system they are working on. I don't necessarily need a display in the right lower corner telling me that what year it is. The connection with real history gets lost anyway when you conquer Italy with the Russians. What I'm wondering though is how the characters are implemented. Do characters die after a set number of turns? To prevent it from getting unrealistic und un-immersive some form of representation of real time is still needed, even if not shown. I'll wait for CA to pass judgement.

[Geoffrey S]

A.Saturnus, that's pretty much the way I see it too.

It'd be the next logical step in the TW series, after RTW added the whole movement points thing. It's a good point you raised about characters ageing and similar matters, but there's no reason as you said that the time couldn't be tracked while the turns keep adding up.

[Servius]

CA is proposing to make MTW2 like 'The History Channel with TIVO'. Basically, CA wants to be able to cover a very long period of history in a very quick amount of time, and they want to still pack in all the big events. So, the game will be like a highlight reel. I say they're TIVOing history because CA is treating the 'boring' parts as TIVO treats commercials, by fast-forwarding through them. Therefore, if they used dates, the major events will appear to happen WAY before their time.

The game starts around 1050 or 1100. Chris Columbus' voyage was in 1492, which would be like 400 turns if 1 turn = 1 year. But in CAs version, CC's voyage will have to occur probably around turn 150 or 175. If there's only 225 turns, there won't be enough time to do anything with the Americas if the voyage occurs much longer after turn 175.

BTW, I voted No. Removing years is just one more abstraction that makes this game less authentic and fun. It makes it more fast-paced, less-intelligent, less-accurate, and less realistic. Rise of Nations here we come.

[Ludens]

I didn't vote because I don't know what a system they are working on. I don't necessarily need a display in the right lower corner telling me that what year it is. The connection with real history gets lost anyway when you conquer Italy with the Russians. What I'm wondering though is how the characters are implemented. Do characters die after a set number of turns? To prevent it from getting unrealistic und un-immersive some form of representation of real time is still needed, even if not shown. I'll wait for CA to pass judgement.

Agreed. I'd like to have clarity about what CA is going to do before I will decide whether I like it.

[Mikeus Caesar]

I definitely want to keep dates. After all, how are you going to compare your game to history without dates? How are you going to brag to your friends about it? Hm? What sounds more impressive, i beat the French in 1324, or i beat the French in turn 58?

I am going with the former. Not mention that having dates gives you a proper scale of things as to what you're doing.

But if CA want to appeal to the uneducated masses of n00b-pwning-AoE-whores then so be it, i won't be buying their game. Unless of course someone makes a mod so that turns are turned into years.

[TB666]

I definitely want to keep dates. After all, how are you going to compare your game to history without dates? How are you going to brag to your friends about it? Hm? What sounds more impressive, i beat the French in 1324, or i beat the French in turn 58?

Well people who are among the ones complaing are also bragging about completing RTW in 30 turns so maybe it isn' such a big deal.

[Patricius]

I do not mind the numbering. It could allow a game to be played without an end date or unhistorical late date. Still I would prefer years. Perhaps a toggle in setting like 'numbered turns=0' could be provided.

[fallen851]

But if CA want to appeal to the uneducated masses of n00b-pwning-AoE-whores then so be it, i won't be buying their game.

Umm, you won't buy the game then because if you did you would be pwned, n00b.

Seriously, though, they should keep the dates. I wish they had used a Roman numeral system for RTW for the dates, that would be so cool, but then people would have trouble... "err I think I conquered Rome in MCXIIVIV, or was it MXCIVIV, crap I have no clue... are those even numbers?".