Some new screens

**Puzz3D** · 08-02-2006, 20:54

Bob Smith said the timescale is from 1080 to 1530. That's 450 years and we know that is covered in 225 turns. It's obvious that 1 turn = 2 years if the game really spans those years. If you forget about that and pretend that the medieval period was squashed into 112 years with 4x faster technological development, then 1 turn = 1/2 year.

**TB666** · 08-02-2006, 21:09

Yes and Bob Smith also said, I quote

but we're trying to get away from the idea that a turn represents a specific amount of time

Note the word specific.
If a turn would equal 2 year then that is a specific amount of time which CA is clearly not doing thus 2 year/turn is right out.
Only way the 2 year/turn theory would be true would be if CA would abandon this and go back to the old system that it has used in the last games but I think you know that CA wouldn't do that

I say again how it will work remains to be seen but right now I have only seen 3 theories and that is the 2 years/turn, my own or that the system will be like in the Civ series and right now mine and the Civ theory are the ones that are closest to what CA has actually said.

**Puzz3D** · 08-02-2006, 22:10

Originally Posted by TB666

Yes and Bob Smith also said, I quote: "but we're trying to get away from the idea that a turn represents a specific amount of time"

Then CA shouldn't say that characters age 1 year every 2 turns or that the campaign's timescale is 1080 to 1530.
They should say a character lives an average of 120 turns, and that the campaign's timescale is 225 turns.

**TB666** · 08-02-2006, 23:09

Yes they can say that.
Once again, read the quote
"but we're trying to get away from the idea that a turn represents a specific amount of time".
STW: 1 turn= 3 months(or was that 6 months too??)
M1TW: 1 turn= 1 year
RTW: 1 turn=6 months
M2TW: 1 turn=According to you 2 years

These are turns that equals a specific amount of time, 1 turn is always a constant move forward through time.
However this is not what CA is trying to do.
They are not removing dates which you could see in one of the screenshots.

In my theory the dates are merely visual things and that a turn doesn't push a date forward like it did before.
Instead the player's actions will.
Through progressing by building stuff you will reach events that will change the date but it will not be bound by the number of turns.
Like the Marius reforms in RTW, you reach that reform by building stuff, not by hitting a special turn.
Of course this made it not very historical but by changing the turn system then you hit the right historical date no matter how fast or slow you play.So let's say you get a event that happend in history at the date 1200 AD, the date counter will say 1200 AD and will say so no matter how many turns it took for you to get that event.
Thus turns represent a unspecific amount of time which is what the offical word says.

And as you can see when you try to make turns a specific amount like you just did, aging makes no sense since you would only have 2 character through the entire game.
I suggest you ignore the aging completely like I did since no matter how you twist and turn(no pun) it will never make sense.
Neither my theory, the Civ theory or 2 years/turn theory explains it.

Right now I'm not totally dismissing the 2 years theory but I'am however dismissing it as a fact which is what most people like yourself is trying to pass it off as even tho it goes against the only offical word we have and will ever have until the game is out.
So be a good sport and do like me and the guy that thought of the Civ thing and state it is a theory only will ya.
False facts serves no one.

**L'Impresario** · 08-02-2006, 23:53

B-b-but... Civ isn't in any way a historical game, you can have tanks while your opponents have coconut throwers. And conveniently enough, there are no characters in Civ. Your rulers will also need to be pretty durable lest your dynasty ends with its first ruler and son being dead. And will the Golden Horde appear on turn 31 in one game and turn 168 in another?
I believe that a game series like TW can't exist in a temporal vacuum, people will still think in historical and standard chronological terms. Even when I played Civ2 I automatically compared my technological advance with the relevant historical events, without any conscious effort.

I think that logic dictates that each turn will represent a certain amount of time, because if you strive for battlefield realism and immersion, then you can't easily come to terms that each round won't represent a specific time period. Else you should have different (random?) map movement speeds. I can't reach England from Constantinople in 5 turns every time I try to do so and still be unwilling to believe that this doesn't represent a standard amount of time.

**Ituralde** · 08-02-2006, 23:55

Without wanting to go into too much detail I don't think that either the Civ theory our your thory TB666 will make it into the final game. It will either be like Puzz3D has said and most people have tried to figure out via mathematics, or they will abolish years for good and the current year is nowhere to be seen. You just start and after 225 turns you're finished (triggered events are finished anyways although you can play on), quite similar to the way it was done in Alexander, where your characters still aged but the game had no year reference at all.

That's just my bet though, wanted to state it for the record!

Nice screenshots by the way and great find to the OP, already looked at them earlier and besides the city/castle conversion thing there isn't much to be said about them, which doesn't keep me from enjoying them greatly!

Edit: Just saw L'Impressarios answer and want to add that he gives some of the reasons why I ruled out the first two theories

**TB666** · 08-03-2006, 01:34

True true hence I'm not trying to pass my theory off as a fact which I don't think anyone should right now since it is feature we know nothing about and I doubt we will until the game is released.
That's the essence of what I'm trying to get to

Anyway this is all off-topic so let's get it back on topic.

What I find most interesting is how the AI is behaving.
I see the danes going big and destroying poland and seems to do battle with the french.
And I see Milan also going big but lost it all to the danes.
Also interesting is how it looks like maintain a large kingdom seems to be hard since in one shot a faction got a large area and then in another they lost half of it to rebels.
Maybe the bigger you get the more loyalty problems you have.