Developer's Blog

[Zatoichi]

News from the .com - a new dev blog is up:

www.totalwardev.blogspot.com

Very interesting article with a few bones for us who want slower combat speeds, and something about 'infantry blobbing' whatever that is - worth a look though.

[econ21]

Check the ... general slow down in combat speed, that’s just a taste of what’s coming.

My expectations are being raised, what with this statement, the AI podcast and the showcasing of some interesting new historical units (e.g. Scots Guards) in the previews.

[Kalle]

Yes, this sound good indeed, hopes are higher after reading this blog, maybe I must invest in new hardware afterall :p

Kalle

[R'as al Ghul]

Check the infantry blobbing improvement and general slow down in combat speed, that’s just a taste of what’s coming.

Sounds good but how and where can I check this?
Am I missing something? (flash doesn't work at work.....)

R'as

[TB666]

Sounds good but how and where can I check this?
Am I missing something? (flash doesn't work at work.....)

R'as

I think he means that you are gonna see it in the demo since that is what he is talking about.

[Spartanian]

general slow down in combat speed, that’s just a taste of what’s coming


I Love u Pala

First Time i read a information that gives me realy hope for MTW2.

And the "that’s just a taste of what’s coming" sounds like a pointing on moore improvemend on MP gameplay,besides speed.
Pala is a MTW VI vet so all in all sounds very promising,because he now what we realy whant.

[Tamur]

It's one thing to have the programmers and designers talk about AI and battle speed slowdowns, and a completely different (and much better) thing for QA to talk about it. If QA says it, it's real. Mostly. Anyway, very nice news here, I'm looking forward to future additions.

[Myrddraal]

Looks promising. I especially like this section:

Anyway consider this a sort of hello from us at CAOZ’s QA department; the extra details you really want to know about will come in following reviews.

Cheers you guys at CA

[Lord Adherbal]

definitly good to hear that Palamedes is (allowed to) doing his job and bring the gameplay & tactics closer to that of our beloved S/MTW.

if you look at the last seconds of the new Crusades and Religion trailer at gametrailers.com you can clearly see the much slower pace of the battle. Cavalry aren't moving like jetfighters anymore (even when charging) and infantry doesn't turn into thin air after being charged in the back.

[sunsmountain]

This game build hasn’t been tweaked to play just right yet, so no need to spam the forums with “Guns, get it together”, “Pikemen, what the!”, “Missiles, golly gosh!”, “Cavalry, it’s gonna be spam time all over again.”

Best thing I've heard a CA developer say for months, like podcast 5.

[Spino]

Infantry blobbing?!?

Sounds positively scandalous!

I am guessing that they're working on preventing infantry units from losing their formation cohesion while engaged in melee combat. Basically we'll see less of those amoebic infantry blobs developing once the battle lines are joined. If this is the case then it sounds good to me. When playing RTW I found it a bit odd watching Rome's disciplined legionaries slowly break formation and proceed to creep and swarm around an enemy unit.

[Mount Suribachi]

Excellent stuff! Its also an implicit admission that movement speeds and stuff in RTW did not go down well with the community. I may have missed it, but I don't think I've ever seen someone from CA say that RTW was too fast, or that MTW2 looked like it was also too fast.

Good news

[CBR]

Infantry blobbing?!?

Sounds positively scandalous!

I believe he is talking about the "blobs" seen in MP. Massing many units into one big blob.

But if they also could fix the thing you are describing, that would be nice too.


CBR

[luo bin]

Sound too....lets mention that....RTW lacked the great music previous to the series and some of the effects were empty too....so, its good to see this chap from OZ mention the sound....

[Ignoramus]

It was a joke defending as one of the Greek factions in Rome, all I did was "blob" 4-5 units of Milita Hoplites together at the gate and...

[King Noob the Stupid]

The marketing guys have a blog too.

[redriver]

Infantry blobbing?!?
... When playing RTW I found it a bit odd watching Rome's disciplined legionaries slowly break formation and proceed to creep and swarm around an enemy unit.

why was it a bad thin'? flankin' and gettin' behind the enemy while chargin' it frontally gave leginaries more advantage and more so against spearmen!
the same goes for any unit. the killrate goes up and morale down when flanked by somebody...

[L'Impresario]

The marketing guys have a blog too.

After reading this, the ancient beliefs of the Old People are proven once more to be correct: marketing people are scary.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

At least the markerters now have a vague idea of what some people were saying - "The battles are only the beginning" is actually pretty good and (hopefully) means that the focus is shifting away from "lol graphix lol" and on to a little better gameplay.

And the dev blog is making me cautiously optimistic, despite my best efforts to remain angrily jaded.

[Doug-Thompson]

Rum, blobbing and the lash.

======

If foot archers can really skirmish, I'm going to cry with joy.

[CountArach]

Well that is comforting. It is good we are finally getting some AI. I would love to see how they did with perfectly identical armies to mine though. It would be interestin.

[screwtype]

Sounds good, but how much slower is slower? Battle speeds in vanilla RTW were so ridiculously fast that even a substantial slowdown would still leave you with a frantic clickfest.

The best thing that could be done would be to make the speed of battle fully and transparently moddable. Failing that, I'd be happy to settle for Shogun battle speeds

[The Stranger]

i dont like what the guy says about unit sizes... i really really dont like that

[Bob the Insane]

i dont like what the guy says about unit sizes... i really really dont like that

Why out of interest?

I am not a MP player but I can understand they need at least some balancing of the units and I don't see how it really effects the SP game...

[Furious Mental]

"Battle speeds in vanilla RTW were so ridiculously fast that even a substantial slowdown would still leave you with a frantic clickfest."

Judging from battle map footage in recent videos MTW 2 is significantly slower.

[rory_20_uk]

Is there a valid reason why the speed contol on tactical battles is so constrained? There are points where one might prefer 1/4 speed (to avoid a clickfest - I have to admit to regular pausing as I don't feel that my ability to click everywhere at once should decide a battle); equally at some points 5 or 10 times speeds may be desired.

[Spino]

I believe he is talking about the "blobs" seen in MP. Massing many units into one big blob.

But if they also could fix the thing you are describing, that would be nice too.

Ah, that's right! I completely forgot about the penalties applied to units that were stacked on top of one another in STW & MTW. I wish they would also bring back the formation AI that would force units not engaged in combat to march clear of another unit that is infringing on its space (typically after x number of seconds had passed). It was a bit of a micromanaging pain when units would sometimes march clear of another without orders but at least it kept you honest in SP and MP battles.

why was it a bad thin'? flankin' and gettin' behind the enemy while chargin' it frontally gave leginaries more advantage and more so against spearmen!
the same goes for any unit. the killrate goes up and morale down when flanked by somebody...

You'll get no argument from me! However Roman legionary cohorts (or phalanx units for that matter) didn't 'blob apart' upon coming into contact with the enemy; they fought in tight, disciplined formations that better resembled a human powered killing machine than a pack of opportunistic swordsmen doing their own thing. Typically the boys up front thrust and cut away until the centurions blew a whistle or barked out a command whereupon the rear ranks would open up, allowing the front ranks to run to the rear for a breather while the second rank stepped up and took their place in the front lines. However since the cycling of ranks isn't available in the TW games I can live with the ameobic blobbing effect. One could always leave the 'Guard' option enabled for legionary units to keep them from breaking formation.

i dont like what the guy says about unit sizes... i really really dont like that

I'm not too worried about that. What bothers me is the effect of Large and Huge sized units have on a province's population. I simply cannot enjoy campaign games using the Huge sized units option in RTW because the AI is simply too handicapped by this feature. I guess I was hoping that CA would make it so that regardless of which unit sizes you select, the drain on a population would be a fixed rate, based perhaps on the default ('normal') unit size.