Interview at CVG!

[Ituralde]

Just found this linked at the .com forums:

http://www.computerandvideogames.com....php?id=143296

A very interesting interview with Bob Smith. I especially like the sound of the last paragraph regarding multiplayer. Seems like the problem with the different armies, mentioned here a couple of times, has been solved by reintroducing the ear Early, High and Late for the multiplayer game. They're even trying to balance the units. Wonder how that's gonna turn out.

Cheers!

Ituralde

[L'Impresario]

This is quite encouraging, AI mentioned lots of times as well as having a paragraph for MP that provides actual information.
Actually the lack of eras could have broken gameplay balance by itself and impose a single playing style.

[Lord Adherbal]

yes, definitly good to hear they're back (I wonder if they listened to my complaining about this :P). Without Eras balancing would've been impossible, or atleast there wouldn't been a lot of obsolete units and armies would be unrealistic mixes of units from all periods.

[jwj442]

Some interesting stuff there. They seem to be working a lot more on the AI, and even mentioned that they were adjusting kill rates...

[Doug-Thompson]

Some interesting stuff there. They seem to be working a lot more on the AI, and even mentioned that they were adjusting kill rates...

Yes, but notice that "kill rates" were mentioned as one of the "loose ends" he was working on.

[Ituralde]

Yeah sure, but on the bright side: Kill rates are worked upon!

[Trajen the 1st]

Wait so they'll do eras for MP but not SP? Great, seeing as nobody plays MP much I cant really see this as important.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

They might make them faster...

[Ibn Munqidh]

Historically, kill rates in battle and in individual duels were quite fast, not like hollywood sparring where one of the combatants fights, looses his sword then both start punching each other, then regain their swords, then .....

It usually ended within 20 seconds with someone dead.

[screwtype]

Not much that was new in this interview, except the parargraph about eras in MP.

The one new piece of info that I did find interesting was the talk about the mix of troops and the fact that it's not easy to recruit troops of all one type. The good thing about this, I think, is that it should help to avoid the phenomenon of really unbalanced AI armies (like peasant hordes, for example).

So this sounds to me like at least one feature which has the potential to improve gameplay.

[SpencerH]

So now the player will have a realistic mix of troops in battle so they'll really have to figure out how to use those lighter cavalry or peasant spearmen within their tactics on the battlefield

Hmmm? Yeah, I guess no one ever created a dominant army in the middle ages composed mainly of pikemen

[Orb]

Did I hear 'the awesome gameplay of Rome'?

[Fwapper]

to be presise... you read it. But anyhow.

I think this looks promising. Sure it is all by a man inside CA so it will probably be biased, but there were many AI and a few realism mentions.

I remain cautiously optimistic...

[Bob the Insane]

Well if you want realistic then you are going to need a baggage train and watercarriers...

Armoured knights would fight for like 5 minutes and then break off combat in an orderly fashion to drink water brought by the water carriers. If they didn;t do this? Well it was not unknown for people in heavy armour to keel over of dehydration and exhaustion in pretty short order.

Imagine seeing that in the game...

Personally as someone how greatly enjoyed MTW, RTW and RTW:BI as games I am really looking forward to M2TW and it's new and reintroduced features...

[Midnight]

Nice to see that eras are coming back. I hope the AI can build better than in could in original MTW, because Early games weren't challenging for long as the AI couldn't keep up with structures.

[Ituralde]

What plans do you have for multiplayer in Medieval 2?

Bob Smith: [...] We're also bringing back the choice of "eras" form the original Medieval [...]

combined with prasthereapers statement over at the .com:

4) Eras - lack of multiple starting positions

[...]

4) Each era is effectively a completely new campaign that needs to be individually setup, tested and balanced. Having multiple eras would inevitably delay release of the game.

lead to the only conclusion that the eras will be available in Multiplayer only.

Cheers!

Ituralde

[The Wizard]

A very interesting interview with Bob Smith. I especially like the sound of the last paragraph regarding multiplayer. Seems like the problem with the different armies, mentioned here a couple of times, has been solved by reintroducing the ear Early, High and Late for the multiplayer game. They're even trying to balance the units. Wonder how that's gonna turn out.

Excellent, that reverses a particularly painful change that marred RTW for me: the absence of an elaborate tech tree. After some fifty to eighty turns (a fraction of the total possible playtime) in RTW, you had reached the end of the tech tree, and had all the most advanced and most powerful units that could be fielded. Moreover, the way to attain these most powerful of units was exceedingly simple: to get each of the most advanced production buildings all that was required was population growth. No tie-ins with other buildings (think smithies, markets, etc.) -- just straight upwards.

It made for an extraordinarily bland experience concerning the units you could produce, especially considering the enormous and diverse tech tree that MTW showcased, which was also renewed and increased every hundred turns or so. I, for one, quickly lost interest as from turn fifty onwards my armies would basically be the same and all I would be doing was churn out new ones, instead of developing my armies constantly. That, combined with the simplistic, gamey combat and the MTW AI that couldn't handle itself on the new map, made RTW very boring very quickly.

Edit: I read over the entire interview, and I must say -- the man does like his gimmicks, eh? That's all he really talks about. Gimmicks. Yay, castle can turn into city. Yay, more diplomatic options. Yay, you'll be forced to rely somewhat more on diversity -- but these are all features. Where's the big picture? These are all cool ideas, but they remain novelties and add little intrinsic value to the game. Why doesn't CA build a good foundation upon which to construct its fabulous little quirks -- instead of dumping them on quicksand?

[DisruptorX]

Excellent, that reverses a particularly painful change that marred RTW for me: the absence of an elaborate tech tree. After some fifty to eighty turns (a fraction of the total possible playtime) in RTW, you had reached the end of the tech tree, and had all the most advanced and most powerful units that could be fielded. Moreover, the way to attain these most powerful of units was exceedingly simple: to get each of the most advanced production buildings all that was required was population growth. No tie-ins with other buildings (think smithies, markets, etc.) -- just straight upwards.

It made for an extraordinarily bland experience concerning the units you could produce, especially considering the enormous and diverse tech tree that MTW showcased, which was also renewed and increased every hundred turns or so. I, for one, quickly lost interest as from turn fifty onwards my armies would basically be the same and all I would be doing was churn out new ones, instead of developing my armies constantly. That, combined with the simplistic, gamey combat and the MTW AI that couldn't handle itself on the new map, made RTW very boring very quickly.

Edit: I read over the entire interview, and I must say -- the man does like his gimmicks, eh? That's all he really talks about. Gimmicks. Yay, castle can turn into city. Yay, more diplomatic options. Yay, you'll be forced to rely somewhat more on diversity -- but these are all features. Where's the big picture? These are all cool ideas, but they remain novelties and add little intrinsic value to the game. Why doesn't CA build a good foundation upon which to construct its fabulous little quirks -- instead of dumping them on quicksand?

Those are my thoughts exactly! The tech tree in Rome is short and boring. Hell, in some factions in the expansion you literally can build every unit in your army immediately! RTW is lacking the "civilization" like aspect of MTW, which is one of my favourite things about the game. Maybe its just me, but there seem to be alot less variety of units in Rome, too. I remember playing as the turks and egyptians and having so much variety I couldn't decide what to build! Having multiple units that fufill the same role, but slightly differently, is a good thing.

In Rome, I only play multiplayer, really, because the campaign is boring, plain and simple.

[econ21]

Well, to be fair, historically armies do seem to have evolved more dramatically over the Medieval period than in that of republican Rome. Play any of the major RTW realism mods and there is precious little of a "tech tree" to speak of, with regard to units. Take the Romans for example - basically, their core army becomes all principes. Rather boring - brutally effective, no doubt, but still boring. Moreover, the realism mods tend to make it available to recruit from the full unit roster right from the beginning (waiting decades for triarii does not make much historical sense).

Some of the vanilla RTW factions have pretty impressive tech trees in terms of units - the Seleucids in particular. They start off with levy pikemen and prodomoi and slowly tech up. I think I was at the gates of Rome before I could get imitation legions. Never saw an armoured elephant (or even a Companion, IIRC).