Developer Blog Update Ah happy days………………

[|Heerbann|_Di3Hard]

http://www.totalwardev.blogspot.com/

"Anyway I have some much anticipated news for the multiplayer crowd, but you will need to wait for the next blog. Oh it will be happy days!"

Ahhhh, wait for the next blog. The most important issue imo. :D

But never the less the new blog makes me optimistic. Good news about the cav and waypoints.

[Hobot]

With each new hopeful piece of news I get more and more antsy to go out and conquer stuff!

[Chuffy]

As for the campaign game the thing that jumped out straight away was the zoom scale of the map you can zoom in nice and close and see forests sway in the breeze, waves crash on the coast and waters flowing along rivers. The campaign map just looks spectacular! As for game play you are going to really enjoy the added layers in the campaign in terms of more complex trade mechanics and the introduction of heresy and inquisitions “beware the dark side Luke”, oh the sadness when your favorite general is put to the flame by an overeager inquisitor. You will also be happy to know that you cant simply steam roll the map once you take a large number of regions, the campaign has been balanced to ensure that maintaining a large empire is a tricky balancing act.

Let me say a few things.

It is great that CA is trying to reconcile itself with the community after the faisco that was the few months after RTW and BI.

It is great that at many points that seem to have listened to the communities complaints and ideas; "You will also be happy to know that you cant simply steam roll the map once you take a large number of regions, the campaign has been balanced to ensure that maintaining a large empire is a tricky balancing act".

However, I think many people would appreciate a bit of info as to WHAT THAT STATEMENT ACTUALLY MEANS. :) How about actually explaining to us what has been achieved to reach that effect? I personally think its great to hear that this issue has been adressed...but I would think it even better if we were actually told how it was...

Sorry, I'm just very distrustful of marketing jargon.

[econ21]

...cavalry that only do well on the charge...

Interesting. Rome Total Realism Platinum Edition tries to do this and, although I was initially sceptical, it seems to work well. It's fun trying to line up a decent charge: ideally, you want your cavalry to be well ordered, facing the right direction and to be sufficiently distant from the target to build up momentum. The RTW 1.5 already has the mechanics for it built in, it's just a matter of tweaking the stats to make the charge crucial.

I think many people would appreciate a bit of info as to WHAT THAT STATEMENT ACTUALLY MEANS

Well, we've been told the other AI factions gang up on you if you become pre-eminent. Maybe there are other negative effects of getting big - e.g. on loyalty and revenue - due to corruption and distance from capital etc.

[AussieGiant]

I certainly feel they have made a big attempt at listening to the community.

As to the details...well it is a blog so there is not a lot of room to expand on how things will be done.

If I had to write a blog as a developer it would be a nightmare.

You have so many topics and just 500 words to use, that it would be nearly impossible.

I'd say Econ is right on the money about how larger empires will be difficult to manage. Corruption, distance from capital, happiness issues. They will all factor into the equation.

I will certainly be spending a lot of time on how the economics will work. To me it will be critical to the overall success of your empire. That and population and religious management.

[Jambo]

Regarding combatting the steam-rollering effect with a large empire in the late game, this may also be related to the fine balance that's required between having cities to support the empire and castles to defend it...?

Like Chuffy said, however, the statement from the Blog means very little on its own and in essence is just a marketing stunt. We need substance! :D

[shifty157]

I have to say that thee developer blogs more than anything else CA has done are starting to make me feel rather optimistic about the game. Granted its guarded optimism but its still optimism.

[Bob the Insane]

Well I for one am very happy with all of this, it does sound great...

Add while I understand those who are a little sceptical, I for one do not want to know how everything is going to work before the game arrives. I want a few campaigns with the mystery intact and a few surprizes before I start digging into the statisical goodness...

We will have to get the devs to put spoiler tags on their blogs...

[screwtype]

That all sounds pretty good!

But I had to laugh at this bit:

Dmytro strolled over and indicated he had found a way to allow the unit to maintain speed toward each waypoint, we had a play with the numbers and “WOW” just like STW and MTW.

They're getting all excited about being able to emulate a feature from the first game of the series!

[|Heerbann|_Di3Hard]

They're getting all excited about being able to emulate a feature from the first game of the series!

I like to say only one thing: It is an (hopefully extremely) improved Rome engine

[Puzz3D]

They're getting all excited about being able to emulate a feature from the first game of the series!

That's interesting because for the last two years it's been anathema to suggest that the battlefield gameplay should be more like the earlier games.

I fail to see how waypoints solves cav blobbing (unit stacking).

[Ituralde]

Very nice Developer Blog, I really like the stuff they write there. Why they suddenly seem to be chiming in to the communities hail of the STW and MTW and their despise of Rome remains a mystery though.

I fail to see how waypoints solves cav blobbing (unit stacking).

They don't actually. What solves cav blobbing is as far as I can gather from the blog, that cavalry won't be able to rush through any infantry unit fielded against them and that they will only be effective if they charge the enemy unit or flank them.

[Mount Suribachi]

I fail to see how waypoints solves cav blobbing (unit stacking).

So do I, but then again, that isn't what they said

[Spino]

That's interesting because for the last two years it's been anathema to suggest that the battlefield gameplay should be more like the earlier games.

I fail to see how waypoints solves cav blobbing (unit stacking).

Methinks their definition of blobbing is different from yours...

Today was the death of cavalry blobbing and the return of a user friendly waypoint system. So right now you use cavalry for their charge and best to flank, no longer can you just push through infantry unable to make contact with your horsie. Regarding waypoints this was a little personal request I pushed a few months back and gave up on. The brilliant Russian programmer Dmytro strolled over and indicated he had found a way to allow the unit to maintain speed toward each waypoint, we had a play with the numbers and “WOW” just like STW and MTW. So right now with waypoints, no blobbing, and cavalry that only do well on the charge, M2TW is as much a top down strategic game as it is a frontal visual spectacle and a close up combat dream.

I think the developer's definition of blobbing refers to the propensity for a unit to rapidly lose formation cohesion due to individual pathfinding issues as applied to marching, changing direction, charging or fighting in general. When RTW was first released I recall some Orgahs referring to cavalry movement as being more like a school of fish than an orderly formation of horsemen. I'm betting this is what the developers refer to as 'blobbing'.

[ChewieTobbacca]

From the sound of it, we won't have the problem of cavalry charging into infantry and simply walking through the crowd without getting touched anymore.

Excellent! This solves one of the big problems of RTW and will force cavalry to be used in flanking attacks as they should be.

[Puzz3D]

So do I, but then again, that isn't what they said

Oh! I see. Jason just put cav blobbing and waypoints in the same sentence. I think he should have put a comma after "blobbing" if it wasn't related to waypoints.

Methinks their definition of blobbing is different from yours...

I thought a blob was a bunch of overlapping units.

I think the developer's definition of blobbing refers to the propensity for a unit to rapidly lose formation cohesion due to individual pathfinding issues as applied to marching, changing direction, charging or fighting in general. When RTW was first released I recall some Orgahs referring to cavalry movement as being more like a school of fish than an orderly formation of horsemen. I'm betting this is what the developers refer to as 'blobbing'.

He says, "no longer can you just push through infantry unable to make contact with your horsie". What is that other than stacked cavalry which is able to push through units immune to attack because the enemy men are blocked out by the close packed cav? So, apparently they have increased the cohesion of infantry units which will help infantry to counter cav. Although it doesn't directly address the issue of overlapping units, maybe it will be enough to stop the cav spamming. I suspect the inability to impliment a squeezed too tight penalty is because the engine no longer measures distance from individual men. This is apparent in the way ranged units operate when all the men in a unit can shoot at a target regardless of how far away the individual men are from the target.

[Ano2]

If you look at MTW 1, you find that cavalry cannot really break enemy formations that well, and it made the combined arms aspect a lot more strategic than what was present in RTW.

[Spino]

Oh! I see. Jason just put cav blobbing and waypoints in the same sentence. I think he should have put a comma after "blobbing" if it wasn't related to waypoints.


I thought a blob was a bunch of overlapping units.


He says, "no longer can you just push through infantry unable to make contact with your horsie". What is that other than stacked cavalry which is able to push through units immune to attack because the enemy men are blocked out by the close packed cav? So, apparently they have increased the cohesion of infantry units which will help infantry to counter cav. Although it doesn't directly address the issue of overlapping units, maybe it will be enough to stop the cav spamming. I suspect the inability to impliment a squeezed too tight penalty is because the engine no longer measures distance from individual men. This is apparent in the way ranged units operate when all the men in a unit can shoot at a target regardless of how far away the individual men are from the target.

Ok, If that is the case I guess I stand corrected. The stream of consciousness style of writing in the blog doesn't exactly help matters. However just to put everyone's mind at ease I'd like to know what the developers define as 'blobbing'. Based purely on the developer posts in this blog it seems blobbing as applied in MTW2 only seems to concern a unit's ability to penetrate or pass through an enemy unit unhindered. I haven't seen one word written as related to friendly units being stacked on top of one another. However I get the feeling I'm probably reading too much into this and that it is safe to assume that they've addressed exploitative unit stacking in general.

On the other hand won't the elimination of blobbing altogether lead people to raise the same complaints that surfaced in STW & MTW when elite heavy cavalry charges were halted in their tracks by cheap skirmisher units in shallow depth formations with Guard mode enabled?

[IrishArmenian]

Good news, good news. I like to heer this sort of annowncements. Keep up the work, CA.

[econ21]

I confess I am also puzzled by what the blog means by cavalry blobbing. From the context - it being corrected by cavalry needing to charge to prevail - I think it may mean getting a mass of cavalry (an RTS style group or blob) and flinging it against infantry units, breaking them one at a time. You can do that in vanilla RTW, because cavalry is so powerful (even equites). Indeed, for a faction like Carthage, with weak infantry and missiles, it seems to be the only way to beat Romans. But in RTRPE, you really have to set up a charge properly and, if you want your cavalry to come out of the charge alive, to go for a flank.

[The_678]

Like Shifty157 said these blogs are the only thing to get me excited sinve ive heard of m2tw. In these blogs they actaully address issues the community has complained about with examples and actaul gameplay evidence for the most part. Im finally looking forward to a real game instead of just an rtw mod wih its problems. Hopefully its as good as these blogs make it sound

[Puzz3D]

On the other hand won't the elimination of blobbing altogether lead people to raise the same complaints that surfaced in STW & MTW when elite heavy cavalry charges were halted in their tracks by cheap skirmisher units in shallow depth formations with Guard mode enabled?

I think a big problem was the discounted cost of upgrades that skirmishers received. The upgrades of skirmishers in MTW not only cost substantially less than an upgrade to a melee unit, but upgrades only increased the melee capability of the unit. In RTW, skirmishers pay the same percentage cost as regular melee units for their upgrades, and it's my understanding from talking to CBR that the primary weapon, which is the ranged weapon for a skirmisher, is improved by experience and weapon upgrades.

Maybe the effect Jason is talking about only applies to certain unit types, and cavalry will still penetrate and pass though skirmisher units.

[SirGrotius]

I'm generally excited by any statement which makes me think cavalry have been toned down. I can still just picture my ability to recruit almost pure cavalry armies and well winnng any battle I wanted.