General Speeches - (& Turks lacking them)

[supadodo]

I'm playing turks and for the entire game I have no general speeches. Is this a bug? I'm deeply irritated as I want to hear some bad puns!! Also I can't find the desc_sounds_prebattle which was in the RTW data folder and I guess was responsible for generating those speches.

[Poopflingr1]

They are there, you just need to wait till the camera pans across ur army.. so like 10 secs.. then they start talking.

[KARTLOS]

but the turk speaches are very short - usually one senance. only a few factions have been given a proper repetoire. a clear example of the game being rushed.

[Zoltan]

It's not rushing it, they just had a set budget for the speeches and probably decided to concentrate on a few factions and make them great and interesting, rather than make an equal amount of bland speeches for each faction.

Recording and putting speeches into the game is a pretty straightforward, if costly, business and I'd bet it was planned and done well before release. It's all the game balancing and fine-tuning that is done in the latter stages that usually either causes delays, or gets axed.

Sorry to sound like a fanboy, but your comment was just... wrong. My apologies to you if you are Turk and feel like your favourite faction has been wronged. I do hope the unpacked will allow you to record some new speeches and breathe more life into that faction.

[Xaziv]

well the game was slightly rushed you can't deny that... whether or not the speeches being short is a result of it being rushed can be argued though..

You just need to wait long enough.

I had the same speech given by a byzantium and a spanish guy... the byzantine guy had a spanich accent... weird... but I find that spain has some long speeches.

[supadodo]

Is it random coz I tried waiting but the speech never showed. I got the camera panning but the general apparently ate too much gum. Sigh I dont care if they're boring I just need to hear some cheesy dialogue

[ULT255]

Maybe only generals make speeches. So if your army was being led by a mere captain, there wouldnt be one.

Theres no effect on the gameplay if you let a speech run, is there?

[KARTLOS]

It's not rushing it, they just had a set budget for the speeches and probably decided to concentrate on a few factions and make them great and interesting, rather than make an equal amount of bland speeches for each faction.

Recording and putting speeches into the game is a pretty straightforward, if costly, business and I'd bet it was planned and done well before release. It's all the game balancing and fine-tuning that is done in the latter stages that usually either causes delays, or gets axed.

Sorry to sound like a fanboy, but your comment was just... wrong. My apologies to you if you are Turk and feel like your favourite faction has been wronged. I do hope the unpacked will allow you to record some new speeches and breathe more life into that faction.

no i strongly disagree. there are some factions with a good long repetoire of speaches and others that dont - suggesting they were left unfinished. this is either due to rushing or laziness.


personally i think it is due to rushing - as you say it shouldnt be very difficult to get the speaches down - but they just didnt get around to it

the alternative shouldnt be that all the factions have bland speaches, but that they should all have speaches of a similar quality. im not turkish but i do think that the islamic factions in particular have been completely neglected which is a shame as i imagine they could have been fairly amusing (infidels and virgins in paradise).

[Xaziv]

well certainly the fact that some factions have the <same> speeches with the <same> accent would make you think that they did rush through speeches.

Why else would they make a Byzantine faction leader have a spanish accent?

And you can get speeches without a general or family member. I had an army with no general just a bunch of units... and I still had 1 guy give a very short speech about how the other person is not fit to breathe the same air (there are lots of speeches similar to that)

[Shahed]

I've only been playing Turks, still on my first campaign (long 900 turns) and they have very few one or two liners, nothing more.

Obviously some factions got more attention than the others, that's always been the case in TW. Could be because of time or whatever other reason. I personally am not overly concerned with the reason. I'm a customer.

Just wanted to point it out because that is the case.

Some factions units are also way more detailed than others.
The work is not uniform, more here, less there. It isn't the same effort throughout, but it's a grand effort.

The Islamic factions were neglected in MTW as well. Most people want to play the Catholics so hence more attention there, I suppose. It's also that information for Catholics is (understandably) much easier to come by. It could have been much more interesting for all if all factions finally got the deserved attention.

Having said all that, the Islamic factions got a LOT more attention than MTW this time around, and I personally am really happy to see that. It's so much better than MTW. Like day and night. I love it !

[dopp]

Is it the original 5 you can play on your first grand campaign that have the longest speeches? Sounds like they concentrated their resources on those. If you recall, in RTW only the Romans had the funny stuff like "every man will be my sister" and "I want to bathe in their blood for a week" or "we can hide in the woods and ambush them". The others just had some simple lines as well. I'll admit I'm a little puzzled by the lack of cheers in M2TW. Only silence greets my general until his concluding line, then a little ragged shouting. Are all the men busy praying or is the cutscene a little buggy?

The Spanish speeches are a little dull. "We are a nation of erudite warriors" doesn't resonate very well. I think the delivery isn't as good as RTW. Lack of cheering and suchlike, plus overall quite uninspired voice acting. When I first heard my general speak I thought he had picked up the BoringSpeaker trait or something. Later I found it was normal.

[unknown_user]

I'm going to have to say that this was definitely not due to it being rushed. As Zoltan said, they most likely had this recorded and set up a good long time before the game was finished. I'm betting they only had so much money to allocate to voice acting, and the most important factions (read: the starting factions) got the most attention, because those are the most popular and the ones the most people want to play.

Now, I won't deny that this game did get rushed by the end, but the voice acting wasn't affected by it. Poor budget allocation, perhaps, but not rushing.

[Shahed]

I posted this in another thread, this is part of a speech by Tarek,one of the conquering Arab generals in Spain. He gave this speech before a battle.

"Remember that I place myself in the front of this glorious charge which I exhort you to make. At the moment when the two armies meet hand to hand, you will see me, never doubt it, seeking out this Roderick, tyrant of his people, challenging him to combat, if God is willing. If I perish after this, I will have had at least the satisfaction of delivering you, and you will easily find among you an experienced hero, to whom you can confidently give the task of directing you. But should I fall before I reach to Roderick, redouble your ardor, force yourselves to the attack and achieve the conquest of this country, in depriving him of life. With him dead, his soldiers will no longer defy you."

It's easy to use part of this, OR conjure up a speech on this basis for the Moors and there are many many other speeches you can use. It would also be quite a contrast to the other factions. Even though generally the Arab voices are quite brutal sounding, generally a speech would have to have been eloquent and well versed as these guys were quite literate, and Arabic was an extremely poetic language. The further back you go the more so. There is no shortage of speeches, heroes or orators for any of the factions in game.

OFC there are constraints, but I wonder are there really ? I know a guy from the last online squadron I was in, for a flight simulator. He GAVE skins he made for aircraft to the developers for free. Those skins are now incorporated into the newest official version of the product, he's got a little one line mention in the manual and he's happy. Because he wants to help improve the game and enjoy his hobby.

Anyway not complaining, just sharing my thoughts. Time is always a factor with any project so is money. I dislike mediocrity though, I also dislike imperfection. M2TW is realy great though. AWESOME achievement.

[supadodo]

Hmm then I think theres sumthin wrong with my game. I've waited for general speeches for lots of battles all with generals inside them but they dont trigger. I ve even waited for the units to quit cheering which is rather pathetic since they're so feeble and soft.

[Shahed]

Don't wait... they have nothing to say.. the INFEEEDEEELS !!!
There are'nt many speeches for the Turks dude. That's it.

It's a shame could be so much fun. I'm already LMFAO whenever I think of any one of the little sentences I hear. What there is, It's great.

[Burns]

I find the speeches too much of a waste of resources. Doing something is one thing, but you might as well do it right. The speeches are something that I think were not done right and clearly distributed only among the first 5 playable factions. Given that there are 17 playable factions it clearly shows where CA's priorities lay. While these speeches may be fun to listen to, they dont actually add anything to the gameplay. They are pointless and the time spent on them could have been applied elsewhere. Think of it this way: You are the general, you should know what the enemy has. You have spies and watch towers that can tell you. And don't you usually take a look at the enemy army and see how much cav it has, where its infantry is, how many ranged units it has, siege engines? You do this all whether or not you listen to the speeches. Odds are, I think, most of us dont actually bother to. So aside from their amusement value they have really nothing good going for them, Half baked and half done as they are.

[dopp]

I played the Parthians and Carthaginians a lot in RTW and even though they had the "short speeches", (as did all the non-Roman factions) those few they had were delivered well and quite memorable. Some of the inbattle quotes were nice too:

"The Roman Eagle is a Roman chicken. Their general RUNS AWAY!" (cue mocking laughter) Too bad Roman generals usually fought to the death in my campaigns.