Timid response yet again from CA's Wikiman

[Incongruous]

http://p223.ezboard.com/fshoguntotal...cID=1076.topic

Although this only awnsers the questions of

Will CA base M2TW upon an historical timeline?No

Will it include Summer and winter?yes

I think that the 225 turn (this has been edited because Simon Appleton told me to, I can give no more information, I would like it if you didn't draw to much attention to it please. I am very sorry) will be included, unfortunatley CA refuse to provide any reasoning for this decision.

Oh Well...
Any other decent TTS/RTS games coming out?

[TB666]

Your link doesn't work but I assume you mean this
http://p223.ezboard.com/fshoguntotal...cID=1076.topic
I see a reason why they have done this.

The designers now have the fidelity they need to make the game play better without being tied to very specific historical dates. The player doesn't have wait through long periods of medieval nothingness which detracts from the enjoyment of the game.

This is like the fewer provinces in BI.
Alot of people whined about it but when we actually got it alot of people found it better then the original map.
Maybe CA has found that this new system adds to gameplay.

[Incongruous]

Sorry fixed the link.
Well I'll need a bit more enlightenment about the 225 turns.

[TB666]

Sorry fixed the link.
Well I'll need a bit more enlightenment about the 225 turns.

I think we all do but this system could still be in the works, maybe that is why they aren't giving us the full info on it yet.
Personally I'm not entirely sure about this new system but right now it is in the "try it first" area.

[screwtype]

Sounds like what they're doing is just having numbered turns, instead of turns by date.

And then now and again I guess, you will get an announcement about some chronological milestone that has been reached, such as "1390 - the first culverin reach the battlefield" (no I don't know when culverin first appeared, I just made that up).

Sounds fine to me. What's the problem with it?

[Zatoichi]

I've definitely got a bad 'gut reaction' to the idea of seeing turns instead of years - but I can't really put the reason why into words. Maybe it's just the fear of change! I'm not sure how it will work with generals/Kings aging though - that falls under the need for more information category.

So - how will it all work, and how is this better than the way it's worked since Shogun?

Answers on a postcard please...

[spmetla]

Erasing the past...

[ivoignob]

As for the turns 1,2,3... maybe they just haven't written the dates in yet? I don't think that's a big problem...

[doc_bean]

It's just silly!

It's a game. Civ has had a similar system for over a decade and it works wonderfully there.

I thought the campaign map was the real weakness of RTW and am glad they are trying new things to improve it.

If you want to play MTW, play MTW, this is a sequel and not a remake. I'll wait until the game is released before passing judgement.

[hellenes]

If they want to get the clickfest RTS crowd that playes AoE and "0wnz de n00bz" they are free to do so what is important is if they leave it MODDABLE!
All the rest can be tolerated...

Hellenes

[Kraxis]

As someone on he .com said, if there are no dates then this game will just become a game that has knights rather than a historical game. A lot of feeling and atmosphere is put into those little figures. They are important in keeping a feeling of historical progress, even if it has no basis in reality.

But it is so hard to lie to yourself when it says: Turn 16 rather than 1112 Summer.

It is bad enough that apparently each turn is equivalent to two years (not four spmetla), but no dates?

If we have no dates then how does aging work? As it should? Meaning each turn is in fact two years? Or will the people not die in a realistic fashion compared to the dates? The former will be realistic but horrible as we would hardly get a chance to get familiar with the persons (it was hard enough in MTW). The latter will just move the game even more into the 'game that has knights' category.

I'm beginning to fear that 1080-1530 is just the possible range of progress rather than the timeperiod. Pretty much like AOE games. They too range from a certain aproximate date to another aproximate date.
But then I wonder why they have even used dates to say "here it starts, but it doesn't really start here... get it?". Why not just say that the game starts out in the feudal period?

But I refuse to rave until I see a strategic screenshot.

I feel a bit sorry for Wikiman, it is clear that he knows what it is people want to know, and it is obvious that he does not want to say it. He does seem to have some conflicting, emotions would be too strong a word, but it fits quite well.

[Templar Knight]

As for the turns 1,2,3... maybe they just haven't written the dates in yet? I don't think that's a big problem...

Could well be, it seems rather silly not to have dates in a historical game, unless they are aiming this game at casual gamers and people who can't count.

[ivoignob]

Actually I see no reason for that. People, don't get panic! I mean, why should they name the turns 1,2,3... there is no reason for that. I am not a programmer, but I think that it's well possible, that they didn't include the dates yet and named them 1,2,3... instead. As for the short turn-time period, I have no idea about that.

[Servius]

The purpose and rational seem obvious. CA wants the game to cover a VERY long period of time, but they don't want the game to take 'too long' and become tedious. CA wants to include major historical events, probably as triggers like the Marian event in RTW, but in order to keep the action going, they feel the need to blow through many years where they feel nothing interesting happened.

So, if turn 1 = 1066, turn 100 =/= 1166. Turn 100 could = 1280. They probably designed it like this:

Q1) How long a time period do we want to cover?
A1) 1050 - 1600, so like 550 years

Q2) But how many turns do we want?
A2) Approx. 225

Q3) But if 1 turn =/= 1 year, how will we mark the passage of time?
A3) We will use major historic milestones, and sprinkle them throughout the 225 turns. They will occur in historic order, but obviously not with the historic amount of turns/years between them.

Basically, CA is treating the medieval and renesance periods like it was recorded on a TIVO. The boring parts are treated like commercials and are skipped over. That way, the 4-hour Super Bowl game is boiled down to a 2-hour high-light film, plus the Rolling Stones half-time show of course.

[Mooks]

Its a sad sad day for all TW. Stick to the old system...Im not buying this game until I hear from other people what its like (when it goes for sell). They should keep the 1103 AD and keep it one turn one year or maybe even 1 turn 2 seasons. Why fix something if it isnt broke?

Im looking for historical accuracy, if NOTHING happened for a 100 year period O well. (Not like the retards their aiming for will notice). The marian reforms in RTW happened around 100-70 AD, yet they happened in the game 100 years off.

One word for CA's new changes...
BOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

[PROMETHEUS]

I don't like the way he manages pring .... too much words for saying actually nothing .....

[Orda Khan]

Just mirroring some comments here, turns instead of dates is NOT a good step IMO

.......Orda

[doc_bean]

I really doubt they're going to keep turns instead of just adding a certain date to a certain turn. They're probably still balancing the campaign pace so they haven't added them yet.

[Dutch_guy]

Just mirroring some comments here, turns instead of dates is NOT a good step IMO

.......Orda

Seconded.

[General4Hire]

bottom line, i find any change in this area to be unacceptable. As one person pointed out very clearly: When did someone complain about "nothingness" for long periods of time before?

This better not just be some moron design team's idea that they're going to "try" with a game that has the potential to be the greatest grand strategy game ever made.

225 turns? I don't buy. If you want each game to be a copy of an AOE zerg fest then go ahead...I don't. The prospect of spanning 500+ turns through this entire period was probably the MOST appealing aspect of the game at this early stage.

[spmetla]

Erasing the past...

[Dead Moroz]

I don't like the way he manages pring .... too much words for saying actually nothing .....

I have the same impression of that wicked man Wikiman. :) I thought I knew English but every time I read his posts I understand almost nothing. He is very tongue-tied and he is one of those people who talk but not tell. Though maybe he's just trying to speak with teens on their language, 'coz I noticed that teeny fans always admire his words.

Talking 'bout turns issue. First time I heard it I thought like: "Strange... But why not!? Maybe it's really better decision." But now the more I think about it and read other people comments the more "contra" I see and no any "pro". That idea of "passing through medieval nothingness" is very-very doubtful. I'd like to ask CA: what are you making the game for if it's just about "nothingness"? And maybe it's better to call this "nothingness" its real name - "poor gameplay"?

Btw, I think I can answer instead of CA to those who ask for turns moddability: "Forget about it!" Remember how much CA spoke about "unique moddability" of RTW before its release? And what did we get instead? Now they don't even mention any possible moddability of the game.

[doc_bean]

Civ is a great game that I enjoy playing but it's a RTS

No, it isn't, it isn't even real-time.

and based very loosely on the actual civilizations that existed but that's alright because that's how the Civ games have always been. The Total War series have always been based on certain periods of history and deal with an actual map of Europe instead of just random maps.

I think 'loosely based on history' would describe the TW games pretty well.

I am really against this new system if I'm understanding it probably and I see no good reason for a switch from the old,

How many turns did it take to conquer the map in MTW (or worse, RTW) ? How many turns did it take before you could get such an advantage over your opponents that there really wasn't any point in continuing the campaign anymore ? It probably didn't take most people much over 225 turns. Heck, most games are effectively over (except for rebellions and heirless kings) after 100 turns.

Like I've said if they think that there would be too many turns in as large a time period as they've chosen than they should focus on a smaller time period.

I'm curious to how the campaign flow will be, but in general I agree with your point. I tend to prefer games that are more focused.

Don't get me wrong, I don't expect MTWII to be as great a game as MTW was (at its time), I do however hope that it will be a decent, enjoyable strategy game in its own right. There are too few of those around as it is.

[Antagonist]

I'm a bit mystified with this date thing personally. My impression was that they were trying to correct an oft (well, occasionally) complained about realism flaw: the extreme difficulty of finding a single time-period for each turn which would accurately represent both recruitment/construction and movement (EG VI, in which it takes 5 years to move an army across England for a distance which has been historically covered in 5 days) but now I'm not so sure. And even if that were the case, then it sounds like correcting that (minor IMO) flaw would blast open a massive hole in the game as regards immersion/realism. That said, I won't jump to conclusions until I have a better idea what they're doing.

I must say I don't know what people mean as regards Wikiman, though. Surely commentary is better than stony silence? He doesn't seem to be terribly clear sometimes about what he's saying, but nor does he seem like some sinister PR guy trying to win the community's confidence the better to deceive us.

Antagonist

[lars573]

Wikiman's got a fairly big NDA cover what he can say. And they are probably still working out how the progression of time is going to work. And how the campagin is going to be set up.

[screwtype]

I find it kind of comical to see people getting all worked up over such a trivial issue. Who cares whether the turns are labelled by dates or numbers? It's 0.001% of the game experience.

For those who argue that turns without dates is not "historical", I find that argument utterly ludicrous. What is not historical now is that armies - heck, even agents - take literally decades to march from one side of the map to the other.

Simply relabelling the turns by number would not be my ideal solution to this problem, by a long chalk, but it's certainly no less unrealistic than having annual or biannual turns where armies only get to march a few miles and fight a single battle. How long did it take Alexander to conquer the world again? Oh, that's right, about 12 years, including long periods of diplomatic consolidation between military campaigns. Try doing that in RTW.

[Crazed Rabbit]

Well, I'm starting to feel less and less bad that I won't be able to play MTW2 with my current system.

I mean, come on, turns? 'Skipping through the boring parts'? WTH?! What if I want to just build up my empire, or move an army in the winter and not have to wait to the following winter to attack? Oh yeah, I conquered England on turn 35! Or, I gave those French a nasty beating on turn 54! *sighs* Oh well. Guess they didn't learn that much from RTW.

Crazed Rabbit

[hellenes]

I find it kind of comical to see people getting all worked up over such a trivial issue. Who cares whether the turns are labelled by dates or numbers? It's 0.001% of the game experience.

For those who argue that turns without dates is not "historical", I find that argument utterly ludicrous. What is not historical now is that armies - heck, even agents - take literally decades to march from one side of the map to the other.

Simply relabelling the turns by number would not be my ideal solution to this problem, by a long chalk, but it's certainly no less unrealistic than having annual or biannual turns where armies only get to march a few miles and fight a single battle. How long did it take Alexander to conquer the world again? Oh, that's right, about 12 years, including long periods of diplomatic consolidation between military campaigns. Try doing that in RTW.

Well how long did your general live? 58 TURNS? Then 1 turn=1 year. So if it takes 3 turns to march from Italy to Sicily that means 3 years...See your problem still exists.
And what about splitting the campaign in 3 or 4 starting periods like M1TW?
Was that that hard for the RTS impared to understand? What about 4 turns per year? That would give your Alexander 48 turns...with RTW's PO I can get you 50 provinces in 29 turns...
I dont care about gameplay realism, what I care about is IMMERSION and dumbing the game down to the level of AoE's ludicrucy doesnt immerse me at all...

Hellenes

[lars573]

I'm starting to think that Paradox and Petroglyph have the right idea for how a campagin game should un-fold. That is with a ticking clock. Where 1 second in real time is 1 day of the campagin game gone buy.

[Kraxis]

Take a look over at the .com thread...

For once the .com and the .org is in almost complete agreement. That is new. Also I hope it is a fairly rude awakening, and an incentive to do something.

This is the first time I'm honestly thinking about not buying the game, and I must say I don't like it.