New Developer Blog: AI and Battles

[Vlad Tzepes]

"To say I was impressed is an understatement, I think I called the replay “Golly gosh” well to be honest it wasn’t that politically correct but you get the idea."

"Golly gosh"? Vat iz zat? Well if he was impressed, that raises some hope!

And... I might be wrong, but he said something about a... replay? We'll have the option to record battles?

[Nathanael]

Custom battle replays were savable in Rome, weren't they?

The numbers I remember from MTW were 100 for most defensive infantry (spears, pikes) and peasants, 60 for most offensive infantry (swords, axes, polearms, etc) and missile units, 40 for cavalry, 20 for royal cavalry, and 12 for special units like hashishin or naptha throwers. There were obviously a few exceptions (muwahid foot soldiers (an offensive spear unit) and gothic seageants come to mind).

Looking at the Portugeuse units, it looks like the ratios are similar (at a smaller unit size). Respectively, 60, 48, 32, 16, (no special units). Biggest difference is that it looks like the javelin type units are in the large, defensive infantry and peasant category rather than the offensive and missile category. All the 32-men infantry are probably dismounted cavalry (just like foot knights in the first game).

The Turkish units hold up to this theory, with similar unit sizes. Again, there are differences - naffatun are 16 instead of 12, and there's that curious 24-man unit. I doubt they're dismounted anything (as there's no corresponding 24-man cavalry unit). My guess is that they're a new take on hashishin, losing the bows but getting a larger size unit. I imagine they're much like arcani from RTW. It also looks like they have one or two regular javelin units (the guys with their arms up) at the 48-man size like most missile units, and a 32-man size one. I imagine the 32-man unit is dismounted cavalry, and maybe the 60-size javelin unit the Portugeuse have is more of a peasant unit. 48 is probably the standard javelin size.