Med2 Preview Event... the answers

[highlanddave]

thanks alot for your work, Soulflame and for posting some of the answers so quickly.

rats, that leaves me out, my machine is 1.6ghz

[redriver]

thanks alot for your work, Soulflame and for posting some of the answers so quickly.

rats, that leaves me out, my machine is 1.6ghz

same here and my video card's gf4 128mb :)

just bearly meet the min. specs. guess me not buyin' the game after all. will have to wait for the demo to find out.....

[Servius]

Thanks for the info. Please tell them that titles are really important and that they should put them back in. Working them back in as an ancillary would be fine I guess. The ancillary could be the generarl/governor's viceroy who actually governed the province in the general's stead or whatever.

Anyway, the titles were cool for RPG reasons, but they were also cool for combat reasons and they had a noticable impact on the ease of governing a province (if the governor had a high Dread rating).

I can do without the eras, but I can't tollerate more SimCity micro-managing of the plebs.

[Mount Suribachi]

Thanks for the info. Please tell them that titles are really important and that they should put them back in. Working them back in as an ancillary would be fine I guess. The ancillary could be the generarl/governor's viceroy who actually governed the province in the general's stead or whatever.

Like econ21 said, they are in BI as transferrable ancillaries, and also in mods like RTRPE with the Legion banners and stuff. The only thing lacking from MTW is the loss in loyalty when you strip a general of a title.

[Furious Mental]

Personally I've got sufficient faith in CA to believe that the Muslim factions will be collectively different to the Catholic factions and individually different to each other.

[Soulflame]

Part 2:

Okay so now I'll answer the individual questions asked (see the link in the beginpost of this thread).

Modding
1-10. Unfortunately, they weren't able to answer those, but they will ask their collegues in Australia to try get some answers on these questions.

Battle
1.+ 2. Yes, the AI has improved a lot in Sieges. This was actually necessary because the 3 layered walls which citadels have, weren't being used optimally by the AI with the Rome code. Also the Pathfinding got some changes here, so that you can actually have pretty nice siege fights. They both said fighting in the streets really improved in terms of fun and importance.
3. You can't station artillery on the walls, but the towers are upgradable. One very nice thing is that towers don't shoot unless there is actually a unit on the walls next to it. Yes, this means that if there is only 1 unit garrissoned in a castle, most of the defenses don't work.
The AI knows this and so it will be unlikely (but still possible sometimes) that the AI will leave a large castle or fortress defended with just 1 or 2 units.
Although I didn't get to see this in action, this sounds pretty promising and nice in my eyes.
4. Like I said before, kill speeds and run speeds are down. But I'm not sure if it's enough for the people who didn't enjoy it in Rome. If I had to guess (warning, take this for what it is; a guess..) it's probably a reduction of about 25-40% in kill speeds and movement speeds.
Playing the 2 Historical battles, I was able to complete and win both of them without using pause, while I used pause quite a lot in Rome's historical battles. I personally felt that the speed was pretty good in that I felt in control, without needing to pause the game, but also always having something to do or adjust.
Once more, this is just me personally. I think it might still be too fast for some people, but I guess that's inevitable.
5. They weren't sure about this, so they'll forward this question
6. There is no new graphical addition to see how fatigued units are, it's just the same as in Rome.
7. Ship battles are still using the autoresolve system, and your army still won't vanish unless all your boats are destroyed. They are working on some improvements though, especially about the decisiveness of these battles. In Rome ship battles were often not very decisive and remaining ships got a lot of flee movement. That is something they are working on changing, so that you don't have to keep chasing ships around who keep fleeing.
8. Heat/armor penalties are obviously in the game, and compared to Rome it might have some more effect because of the heavier armor and such, but exactly how much of a difference is a balance issue that CA Australia is working on.
9. For siege weapons you still have the assault towers, ladders and all the other stuff from Rome, in addition, the gunpowder event gives you a whole new range of Siege Weapons, so there is more choice then in Rome. You will be able to launch cows from Trebuchets and Catapults and the like (in addition to the normal boulder and flaming boulder ammo). These will (beside the obvious impact casualties.. splat!) have a morale effect. I'm not sure if they also have a disease effect, I noted down something like that in my notes, but it might be only what they told me about history...
10. Pathfinding (like I said in bullet 1 & 2) is improved.

Campaign
1. Sadly, no titles can be given like in Med1, although they said that with the retinues and ancilliaries there will be plenty of stuff to go around. But yeah, it's still a tad sad it isn't in.
2. I listed the factions in the startpost
3. The 5 begin factions do have some special treatment in that they have a special wmv opening, but all factions start off with a small info tutorial about what the faction's position, what immediate things to look out for etc. Catholic factions might have slightly more options because of their direct involvement with the Pope, but the other factions still can't ignore religion or the Pope's power on the world.
They weren't actually sure how to unlock the 12 unlockable factions, it's either 'beat a faction in the campaign and it will become available (regardless wether you personally wiped them out, or someone else did)' or 'finish the campaign with one of the starting factions and all the others will unlock'. But it will probably be easily moddable like in Rome.
4. There is no food/supply system in Med2, just like it didn't make RTW.
5. I didn't get to see recruitment pools in action unfortunately, but they said the AI is well programmed to know how to use the recruitment pools and won't just build random units, it will build units that fit well in it's armies and will look at the future and save some recruits if it deems that's wise.
6. They will get back on how the gunpowder event is done, but they both thought it would be both a global thing (gunpowder invention) and a techtree thing (you need to have the buildings after that to make gunpowder units). It won't make earlier units obsolete right away, but how powerfull these units are in relation to the previous units is a balance issue that is handled in Australia. From the battles I played they actually were not that devastating killing wise, but they were pretty good at destroying morale.
The Aztecs are a lowtech race, but massive and fearless. They said that these battles will be very different from European battles and definately among the best in the game. For one there will be completely different terrain in the form of jungles in America, that aren't in any other part of the world. And of course there will be big rewards in terms of gold in America (I'm assuming that means that saccing an Aztec city will give huge gold amounts)
7. I wasn't really sure about this question. So I hope I interpreted it right. Economic Policy settings are the same as in Rome, you don't have an option somewhere to set all taxes to one level or all building policies to 'military' or 'culture' or something in that vein.
8. Sadly, it won't be possible to have the same thing as in Med1, where you could try to form a whole new royal line by killing off the king and trying to get one of your generals to claim the throne. Civil war on that scope isn't possible. (I forgot to ask about the option to choose an heir... I'll try to get that through email)
9. Balancing (again) is done in Australia, and the game should give a variety in game experiences. It could be that you see a few times that some factions are killed of early, but they think that's more a result of many things, rather then just balancing units and such. Also some events and positions hurt some factions more then others (Mongols invading won't hurt England much for example, but it will affect Russia big).
So I'm not sure if this changed much, obviously the factions are different then Rome, so balancing had to start from scratch. I also think balancing is really big. Changing a few stats ripples through the entire game. So it's something I guess we'll have to wait and hope it comes out right.
10. They weren't sure about re-emerging factions, so they'll send that through.
11. Civil war on the scope of Med1 isn't possible. There will be generals who can go rogue and brigands and rebels, but coups and such aren't possible.
12. There are several Land-bridges in the world; Ireland has got one to Scotland and one to England, there is one connecting Spain to Africa, Denmark to Norway/Sweden and there is one at Constantinople. There might be more but those were of the top of their heads. They are always available (it isn't ice that melts in summer) and everything can traverse on them (including siege units).
13. Weather did undergo some changes. Stuff like mud slowing down armies in the battle of Avincourt, weather effects (expect lightning and such) and the weather should also be a bit more variable in that you could see more changes in weather in a battle.
14. I wasn't really sure about this question either. The timeline is set (dates) so the only way to vary the available number of turns (which they are still tuning) are things like how many seasons etc.
15. You can travel to America with normal boats (no need for special big ships) and you'll be able to pretty much fight the coasts on both south and north america, but not very far land inwards.
16. Only one era is in the game
17. They weren't sure about mercenaries, but reckoned at least the gunpowder event would create different mercenaries.
18. Crusader armies work different then in Med1. No longer do they suck units from the country they are in (which is how I used crusades in Med1; weakening armies by moving the crusade over them and hoping they'd 'steal' some units :p) in Med2 the bulk will be mercenaries that you can recruit into the crusade while you move to the target. As you move through different countries you can recruit different units.
If the crusade sidetracks or takes a long time, it will like in Med1 loose units who just go away and farm or something. If another crusade army beats you to the city, the army comes under your control, but with very low upkeep. You even get to keep the crusader only units. Obviously this army will present some nice diplomatic issues if you happen to get the army as they move into neutral terratory (get off my land!).
19. Pathfinding, like in the Battles, is also improved on the campaign map.
20. Unfortunately, if a city rebels, they still kick you out of the city :( sadness.
21. Although it's certain that roaming around neutral or hostile countries will cause devastation (and as such less income for that faction), they weren't sure if you'd gain money from doing that in the form of pillage money.
22. They weren't sure on this, so they'll forward this question
23. Ballistics is pretty much the same as in Rome probably. Since it's also such a large part of the game and there is so much theory about it, this is probably all very realistic.
From the game I played, trajectories and stuff like that looked fine to me.
24. As for unconventional weapons... there will be a Naphta unit like in Med1, but no poisons. There will be rocket launchers which are unstable, inaccurate, but sends infantry screaming in terror (well, kind of like guns). Timmerids get some of those things.
25. Squalor is still in the game and does have effects, but a far larger effect is religion and heresy. Whereas in Rome squalor was among the things that you had to work hard on, in Med2, heresy will be much more of a problem then squalor. Religion is one of the center pieces of Med2, so it will require a lot of attention.
26. I wasn't really sure about what deserters were meant. You can capture soldiers like you could in Med1 (but couldn't in Rome). You have choices to release, ransom or execute those people, but they won't fight for you.
If you meant deserting generals, those become single stack enemies like rebels and brigands.
27. I was actually surprised by the answer to this question. Missions can be gotten from 2 sources; the Pope and the Council of Nobles. I asked them twice and they said that guilds do not give extra missions, guilds provide bonusses to units and the like, but they won't give missions.
It also isn't possible to win except through conquering land and destroying factions. There is no mission point system with victory conditions.
28. One of my personal questions, I might have forgotten about how it worked in Med1, but in Med2, Chivalry and Dread are the same dimension. So once a character looses his last point in Chivalry and then does something unchivalrous again, he'll gain a point of dread.
They said that influence is still in, although a screenshot on IGN didn't show it. I didn't get the chance to ask about it later on or see it in the game, so I'm still not sure about this.
29. City View is in, in the same way as in Rome
30. I didn't get the time to re-ask this, the presentation was starting and later on I forgot I had to re-ask this.

Religion
1. Protestantism isn't in as far as they knew, which was also confirmed in one of the developer diaries I think.
2. Although catholic factions do have some extra content when it comes to the Pope, religion is very important in the whole game. Heresy is 'the new squalor' (my words) and Jihads and Crusades will still affect you in some ways (like them wandering through your lands).
3. Once your cardinal/bishop etc (all upgraded priests), becomes the Pope, he's out of your control. So it doesn't give you anything exclusive, but it will have a large affect on the standings with the Pope and Papal States. Meaning right after your priest became a Pope, you have a few more 'liberties', like you can attack a catholic faction and get away with it easier then before.
But technically there is nothing different from your Pope and another Pope. If you have a good relationship with a Pope that didn't come from you, you can do the same.
There is also only 1 Pope, there can't be multiple in the game.
4. Theorectically it's possible, although I don't know if the Pope will easily become a protectorate/captured. I asked if Heresy could become so abundant that it could destroy the Papal states, and he said there wasn't anything in the game that specifically prohibits that stuff. So he threw down the gauntlet there; I said I'd try to do a campaign some day to try and get heresy to destroy the world (by not building religion buildings, assassinating priests and sabotaging and destroying churches from other factions).. sounds like a fun challenge hehe
5. Inquisitors this time a round are Papal states only. Bishops and Cardinals etc are just upgraded priest. You can't build Bishops and Cardinals straight away.

System
1. The only real number I got were 1.8 Ghz Gf4 128 for minimum specs
2. Demo release is soon (probably the demo I played) and Store release is probably somewhere in November
3. They weren't sure about all this, so this will get forwarded
4. They weren't sure about all this, so this will get forwarded
5. They said that although Alexander was the first expansion to be released online, they couldn't imagine that they would not do that again somewhere in the future. They also said that the website will get even better and more important in the future. On the question on wether that meant we could look forward to downloadable textures (like spartan hoplites for Rome) or historical battles, they said that although they hadn't heard of that, that it could perhaps be possible. So here's to hoping!

Other
1. There will be 8 Historical Battles, including Avincourt and Pavia (both in the demo I played) and the battle at Hastings.
2. There will be more custom maps and there will be an unsupported battle editor to make your own battles, similar to Rome.
3. As far as they know nothing has been said about online rankings.
4. Like I explained in my starting post; they weren't sure if it was still in or not in the current build. It was in in one of the previous builds, and they would try to convey to CA Australia that it is something we'd like to see.
5. There are changes, but I didn't get to play the whole game, and even then it's pretty large to just note down all the interface changes. One option that's in is 'minimized ui', which basically removes almost everything from your battlescreen except the action. If you are able to work with that ui or you already almost certainly won, then it's nice.

Large questions
1. This question was so large that I actually didn't ask it, but want to refer to the developer diary on the .com, that basically covers nearly all there is to know about diplomacy
2. This was also a big question. One particular point is merchants. Like has been revealed before, they can occupy a trade resource for extra income, even one outside your own borders. Merchants can fight between them if 2 meet (if you put a merchant on an already occupied trade resource), but something I found more insteresting, merchants can generate monopolies. If you have a 2 normal silver mines you get some income (like 10 or something per mine... completely random number) now if you move a merchant onto one of them, you can get 20 from that mine (again, random number) if you move another merchant on the other mine, you don't get 20+20, but something like 30+30... So the more merchants on the same trade resource, the better income you'll get.
3. The main differences between castles and cities have already been revealed; castles can produce better units and cities generate more income. What I didn't yet know was that guilds can only be built in cities, not in castles (and yes, they will get destroyed if you switch your town from city to castle). Castles (1 ring of defense) can be upgraded into fortresses (2 rings) and then citadels (3 rings).
You might also want to build more fortications like watchtowers and forts around the campaign map, because of the vulnerability of cities, and the improved AI which would give you more reason to make these or suffer the consequences (although I didn't get to confirm that.. so if it's true..).
4. One of the 'improvements' of Assassination and espionage are the movies that are back. I didn't have time to ask in depth since these were the final questions I asked and it already was about an hour after the official closing time of the event ;).
5. I already discussed merchants, and priests/bishops/cardinals. One last new agent type are Princesses. These act very similarr to Med1; they are diplomats that can also be used to marry, to generals or to factions etc. They now also get traits and such which help with diplomacy and such.


The Demo Experience
So in between talking to CA and Atari I had a chance to play a demo. It consisted of a Tutorial, 2 Historical battles and a movie.

Tutorial;
This is basically like the Rome Tutorial. You begin with 4 units (general, archers, cavalry and footmen) and have to follow the instructions from the battle helper. I personally liked the Rome Tutorial more, but I can't really say why.

Battle of Avincourt
I actually failed the first time I tried. I was winning but then the king died and my whole army routed... oops :p.
The second time I did win. The stakes from the longbowmen were quite usefull, even regular soldiers had trouble moving between them. They did look a bit large, but I'm no historian to know if they are the right size or not. The longbowmen didn't seem overpowered or anything. Most french battallions reached my line quite easily, but already were worn a bit in morale and fatigue.
The battle was decent, but I liked the second battle more. One thing that I did see once that I hope will be different in the final game, is that I saw the effect that was also sometimes in Rome; half of a battallion would attack a unit and the other half of the battallion would be a bit back, waiting or something. I only saw it once, but it is something I (and I think many others) didn't really like in Rome. Of course this was only a beta build, but still.

Battle of Pavia
This was a much more complex battle, although I did win it the first time around. You play the Holy Roman Empire with Spanish Allies against the French.
In this battle I saw some nice AI movement; somewhere in the battle I sent my Arquebusiers to attack a unit of cavalry and hope to provoke them. They did come, and when I moved my pikemen in front of my Arquebusiers and some Zweihanders on position to flank, the cavalry veered off just before the wall of pikes and ran through the Zeihanders and incurring pretty heavy loses before regrouping. In the meantime, one of my units west of that routed under cannon fire and severe losses, and the enemy battallion were coming up on the rear of the pikemen. I made a gamble to send in a half decimated unit of mine to hold that enemy betallion long enough for my Arquebusiers to keep hitting the enemy cavalry while I tried to position the Zeihanders left and pikeman to protect them.
It paid off, the west unit did reach the pikemen, but shortly after the cavalry routed and caused panic across the enemy and caused me to win.
So I was pleasantly surprised by the tactics the AI used in this battle. although part of it, especially the beginning, was scripted, I do think that headon cahrges on pikes by cavalry is something that wasn't just something for this battle.

The sound were pretty good in both battles. Especially in Pavia where the cannons and Arquebusiers fired stuff and people screaming...


Some final thoughts
I must admit that there are some things that I want to see differently before release if possible. I am a bit disappointed there can be no civil wars, titels to generals, that the mongols are just an invasion force and not playable (maybe with heavy modding.. although that's not certain), the removal of eras, rebels still kicking you out of cities, and perhaps some more.
I did see improvement in the AI and an reduction in speed/killing rate (although like I said, not sure if it's enough for some people), and there are some nice siege changes like towers only working with a unit near them.

Basically I would call Med2 an evolutionary change to Rome, wheras Rome was revolutionary with the change to a whole new graphics engine and the addition of movement for each army.
From Rome to Med2 is kind of like going from Shogun to Med1; it has some updated graphics, but not a whole lot, religion is suddenly extremely important (although this was in in BI), Princesses are back, invading armies... etc.

If you have Med1 but not Rome, this game will be definately worth it for you, If you bought Med1 after you had Shogun, then you'll not be disappointed in going from Rome to Med2 either.
If Rome was your first TW game or you like the Rome Age better and think Religion is just taking away from the battles and such, then you have to personally look at all the improvement that are (and those that aren't) in and decide if it's worth it.


Okay, well, that's it.. my hands are a bit sore from typing. When I get some more answers back from CA about the stuff they didn't know but forwarded, I'll post them here.

Cheers,

Harm - aka Soulflame

[Monarch]

Thanks for that mate, anyword on multiplayer at all?

[Bob the Insane]

One option that's in is 'minimized ui', which basically removes almost everything from your battlescreen except the action. If you are able to work with that ui or you already almost certainly won, then it's nice

Woohoo for that... I always played RTW with this on...

Thanks for all the responses, that was great...

So, BI with better graphics, more religion, more factions and and such... But basically still the same game... Not a problem for me, I liked it in the first place...

[todorp]

Soulflame, thanks for the fantastic news. Straight to the point. Did you manage to take screenshots or make movies?

I am happy with

*Unit speeds and kill speeds have been decreases;

The fast killing speeds in the vanilla RTW almost eliminated the battlefield tactics. Many mods tried to rectify this problem by increasing the defence values, which lead to another anomaly. E.g. winning battles with inferior units vs. elite units just by staying on defence. I win with Numidian javelin man against Triarii in RTR! At the end I feel that it is an exploit and I feel guilty.

[Soulflame]

Soulflame, thanks for the fantastic news. Straight to the point. Did you manage to take screenshots or make movies?

I am happy with

The fast killing speeds in the vanilla RTW almost eliminated the battlefield tactics. Many mods tried to rectify this problem by increasing the defence values, which lead to another anomaly. E.g. winning battles with inferior units vs. elite units just by staying on defence. I win with Numidian javelin man against Triarii in RTR! At the end I feel that it is an exploit and I feel guilty.

I wasn't allowed to make photos of gameplay footage, but the PR Executive would give me a link in the near future to a video and some screenshots (although I don't know if they are new).
I did make some photos from the people there and the 'scenery' (they had a medieval armor suit prop and the menu had medieval items on it, like 'Barbarian Burger' and such)

I'll try to get those up soon

[hoetje]

GJ Soulflame I appreciate what you've done =)

[Aquitaine]

I'm a little confused about the titles. I know that, unlike MTW/STW, you can't turn any old captain into an important person with a title, but what was 'broken' about the 'drag Duke of York to Lord Roos' system? It personalized your armies and your generals in a big way and it was one of the biggest things I felt was missing from RTW. The spontaneous appearance of 'Commander of the Armies of the East' and the like in RTW/BI was a half-hearted effort to put this back -- you had no say in who got the titles to begin with, and your generals had to be sitting around in a city to get them in the first place!

I guess I just don't see the motivation behind this change.

[JR-]

*There are 21 factions, namely;
i prefer not to have starting factions

*Unit speeds and kill speeds have been decreases;
excellent news

*There are 8 Historical Battles planned
good news i guess

*A public demo is in the works and nearing completion
excellent

*They are aiming for minimum specs of; P4 1.8 Ghz Geforce4 128.
i would prefer they were higher, but i appreciate that won't suit everyone

*Generals can't be given titles like in Med 1
shame

*No eras like in Med1, there is only one campaign period.
not too fussed, but in the same manner as custom battles more variety is good

*Campaign battle replay... is uncertain.
do you mean battle replays or campaign replay, i am only aware of the former in M:TW?

[JR-]

cheers soulflame,

i'd love to see the answers to the modding questions.

particularly:
> max # of provinces
> max # of factions
> max # of unit types
> max size of map
> how christian/muslim reformation/schism events can be accomodated
> can we force linear multi-part year progression

[|Heerbann|_Di3Hard]

*They are aiming for minimum specs of; P4 1.8 Ghz Geforce4 128.
i would prefer they were higher, but i appreciate that won't suit everyone

Can you tell us why? Don't forget, it isn't a 3D first person shooter. It is a battle simulation with 10k soldiers!

[JR-]

Can you tell us why? Don't forget, it isn't a 3D first person shooter. It is a battle simulation with 10k soldiers!

i am a tech geek, i pay for expensive PC components and appreciate seeing it pushed to the max.

[JR-]

hi Soulflame,

could you post a list of your modding questions which were never answered please, there may be an opportunity to re-ask them.

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

I was suprise there no were MP Questions answered, unless I was to blind to see it. Did you get any answers about MP, since I like MP more then SP??