More answers from Question Time 3

[edRonin]

I am not sure if anyone else has noticed but they posted a second page of answers to the questions Eradosan compiled. They mention that Mongol Light Cav will not be able to shoot arrows while moving. They are presently on schedule to release the game in early May. There will be the option to upgrade armor and weapons in the online game. Not able to exclude any offensive units (Kensai, BFN). The boats seen on screens are just for show.

The most signifigant thing from today is that they MIGHT have the game ready in early May. It is also the first time that we got any official word on the release date. I am encouraged by that.

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All your base are belong to us

[Gregoshi]

edRonin, don't fixate on the release "date" mentioned.

Now that the Mongol cavalry archery question has been answered, Mongol fans everywhere will be having Wakes for the expansion pack.

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Gregoshi
A Member of Clan Doragon

[edRonin]

Quote Originally posted by Gregoshi:
edRonin, don't fixate on the release "date" mentioned.

[/QUOTE]

I am not fixated. I understand it is a projected time frame that they may or may not meet. But it is good to get some feedback on it.


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All your base are belong to us

[Ii Naomasa]

Mongol fans shouldn't give up on the expansion pack because of the lack of cavalry run'n'gun abilities. After all, those of us who have learned to us cavalry archers have had to put up with them stopping to fire...and Japanese horsearchers, especially the samurai that would've been around in the 13th century, practiced firing while moving, so it's not like its the first time the engine has limited certain realistic tactics. Granted, it's perhaps more important for the Mongols because they used it a lot more and also had a lot more versatility in their aim while doing so. Perhaps in a sequel we'll see cavalry archers being able to fire in motion, complete with their limited arcs.

Cavalry, archer or not, can be saved from the current problems that make most people avoid them by having a 'skirmish' option for them that makes them back up from oncoming forces soon enough to never engage them and also to have a greater ability to break away from an engagement. What kills cavalry units today is micromanagement baby-sitting and the fact that if one horseman comes under attack from the lowliest of ground-pounders, the whole units holds up in their retreat, allowing more grunts to catch up and turn their steeds into glue.

Maybe CA/DT has heard of these complaints from people and has incorporated some minor 'fix' for this that will make horse units more viable.

[Anssi Hakkinen]

Um, I noticed the second page, but forgot to post anything about it. Oh well, there went my chance to start a thread.

Judging by the Shogun's tone, it seems that these were the last of the QT answers. I guess they've covered most of it...

Some points again:

The Koreans are better than Ashigaru (time to revise those cost estimates again).

When using 120 man units, there will be only one Kensai... But they did not say whether the Kensai will be comparatively more powerful in that case - in fact, they edited the whole question out. Also, Kensai are Larger Than Life, which should be considered as more of a useability than realism issue... But still...

The question about musket friendly fire was misunderstood. Guess there had to be one of those, too.

The old maps will be revamped: apparently, some coastal provinces will receive new beach maps to replace the old ones. (I'll laugh my head off if they replace Totomi with a beach map. )

There will be no unit exclusion options - the party line is that "all units are historical". Tough luck.

Finally, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and sometimes an expansion is just an expansion. CA/DT doesn't intend to revamp the basic engine to a great degree, they just add blocks on it. Thus, there won't be super CA, and there won't be editors. That kind of thing has to be built into a game: to add it later, the code has to be torn apart and put together again, and Mongol Invasion isn't a project where that would be possible.

Don't expect the revolution to happen here, expect it to happen in TW2.

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"The warrior's lies are called strategy -- the only honest people are the farmers and townsmen."
- Akechi Mitsuhide

[Hosakawa Tito]

It was nice to get some answers,even though some of our hopes won't be realized.The improved textures and larger maps with more terrain features sounds great.As far as the larger than life Kensai;he shouldn't be hard to follow he leaves a trail of dead men where
ever he goes!
Tito

[Gregoshi]

Re: The Kensai - I have this mental imagine that the Kensai's path will look much like aerial views of tornado damage.

Anssi - I had the same impression about the friendly fire question. The other "issue" I have with these things are the questions not answered. Is it an oversight or intentional. And if intentional, what does that mean? For example, the question about flexibility in setting up (such as differing koku values for attack/defend) and info displayed before joining a MP game (such as seasons) was answered with the ambiguous "yes seasons will be displayed". Was the question misunderstood? Were the other parts of the question intentionally or accidentally forgotten? Or was that answer just poorly phrased?

I think there will be more questions answered. The "next screen" button on page 2 doesn't cycle back to the beginning like the units section did. It just says "no more pages" - like there will be more.

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Gregoshi
A Member of Clan Doragon

[solypsist]

The whole firing-and-moving issue has never been a very big deal with me. It seems somewhere somebody feels that this-or-that is what's needed for the game to be "realistically" presented. Over the course of time I've seen users complain about the aforementioned ability, as well as the fact that musket units can't fire in more than one rank (or archers, either) when we all know the front rank of gunners can kneel and the subsequent rank can stand, thus giving us two firing ranks.
I think the reason there'll be no moving and firing units is that it becomes too confusing to the game engine, and could quickly overwhelm the human player. You want to fire and move or just fire for a bit and then move away? For example, you move your cav to an enemy unit and open fire, then you click for your unit to march quickly away, in which case your unit continues to fire, but what if you don't want that? You'd have to turn off the Fire At Will to prevent this. Or what happens when you simply want to flank an enemy in the fog, and suddenly your archers start shooting (Fire at Will again) whilst in motion, giving away your position? The amount if clicking for command quickly becomes obscene, and given the fact that the computer can far outstrip a human player (imagine fighting against the AI who's equipped with 10 units of move-and-fire units) in speed of control.


[This message has been edited by solypsist (edited 03-17-2001).]

[Puzz3D]

I asked the question about re-evaluating the gun ballistics. It was clearly answered "no". The additional qualifying statement seems to imply that my question suggests there should be less friendly casualties from guns which is the opposite of what I said. I guess I didn't phrase the question well enough. It seems from the answer that guns will continue to work exactly as they do now.

MizuYuuki ~~~
Clan Tkiyama ~~~

[Anssi Hakkinen]

I checked back at Erado-sama's site, and there seems to be a multitude of questions still unanswered. I think they could assemble one more page, but I suspect it would be mostly filled with "no" answers. A disappointing page, in other words.

And Solypsist-sama, those were my thoughts too, and I suspect they were also the devs' thoughts. Too much work to make it work properly.

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"The warrior's lies are called strategy -- the only honest people are the farmers and townsmen."
- Akechi Mitsuhide

[Rodhern]

Quote ... I guess I didn't phrase the question well enough.
Puzz3D[/QUOTE]

It was phrased fine! The answer is just a "no we won't make more friendly fire and b.t.w. we won't make any less" kind of answer; I think.
Rodhern.

[CaPeFeAr]

I read the awnsers posted by the developers but i came away confused about a few points, mabey you guys could help clear it up for me. When asked about how saving of campains is to be acomplished they replied a one week time out or something? Any1 know what this means? They also mentioned they are redoing the maps, well what if we like the way they are now? Can we keep them the same? I mention this because I like totomi alot. I feel a lot of genius went into making this map due to its fair yet not quite flatness. It allows both sides to compeat over certin stragic map spots and IMHO is the best map. New maps are great but it wont be the same game if I cant play on the current map of totomi.

[Anssi Hakkinen]

Firstly, the "one week timeout" thing isn't entirely clear. It has been previously stated (at Gamespot) that the campaign's sequence can be anything from 1 turn = 1 minute to 1 turn = n weeks. I think they mean that the campaign can be left unattended to for the duration of the time out without the turn timer running - thus, you can not save your game, you just leave it be for a day (or several).

While composing this answer, I got very, very confused. Don't trust me on this.

Secondly, the "replacement" maps won't probably be all that different, but should someone wish to retain the old maps, he or she can do an original STW install, make a backup of the old maps, do the MI/WE install and then restore the backups. This isn't my area of expertise - maybe TosaInu-san or someone knows the exact mechanics?

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"The warrior's lies are called strategy -- the only honest people are the farmers and townsmen."
- Akechi Mitsuhide

[edRonin]

The new coastal maps will be interesting. Will the coastal provinces that have rivers have both represented on the battlefield?

I've heard other people say that the guns never inflict friendly fire. I've witnessed FF. The question came from the viewpoint that FF did not exist. The developers came from the viewpoint that FF does exist. So they misinterpreted the question thinking you were asking for FF to be turned off. Is it possible to ask follow up questions based on the answers? Most of the answers have been great. That one and the time of a turn were confusing.

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All your base are belong to us

[Puzz3D]

edRonin,

I agree my question could have been phrased better, but I did say "without causing many friendly casualties". I don't think that means "none". Apparently CA/DT feel that friendly fire casualties are being handled correctly, and see no need to change it. I was hoping they would re-evaluate the operation of guns because quite a few players have voiced concern about it.

MizuYuuki ~~~
Clan Takiyama ~~~

[edRonin]

Puzz3D, I just reread your question again and you did phrase it that way. When I originally read the question I thought you were saying no casualties were caused. Maybe they were as careless as me and misinterpreted the question.

My observations is that there is some small loss to FF. I think that loss should be higher. I also wonder if the FF causes a moral lose to your troops? I think it should. There is nothing more demoralizing than having your own troops shooting you in the back.

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All your base are belong to us

[Kage]

Not only was the answer about saving online campaigns confusing, it seems like no one wants to provide any real details about how the online campaign will work.

I'm gonna buy the whole game all over again anyway, even if it still lacks some features from the wish list(I secretly hope the extra dollars I spend will go to keeping the game updated with new features).

One of the answers said that Richie still reads these forums so... come on Skinner, spill the beans already.

Have a nice day.

[Laertes]

Puzz3D>>

Your question seemed phrased fine to me. *shrug*


Soly>>

With CA/MLC, would it not be reasonable for

- the Attack command to result in the hit-and-run style (the ride-by shooting model) once specified target is in range

- the Move command to result in a normal move, with firing if and only if FAW is toggled on. And, if need be, I doubt that it'd be a challenge for them to add a Sneak movement command that's the same as Move except that turns off FAW until the destination is reached, after which it restores the flag's original state.

Ii Naomasa>>

Sounds like the direct fix would be allowing a unit to abandon stragglers and split, although the rules for doing so might be hard to determine (for instance, the Hatamato should *not* abandon a Daimyo straggler... and the bulk of the unit would need to figure out whether it should instead fight to extricate the straggler [imagine 5 isolated Yari Cav simply picking off HCs in the rear as the 100+ HCs were ordered to move elsewhere; the HCs should at least *consider* simply ignoring the move order long enough to turn around and kill the YCs. But if there are 120 enemy YS approaching, this may be a BAD idea. Note that with YCs vs CA/HCs, the CA/HCs aren't fast enough for the skirmish-distance-only idea to work perfectly, since the YCs are faster and should be able to dictate combat distance under many circumstances.) I don't know whether the engine could handle such an increase in independence and decision-making (versus the current relatively strict formation-based system, with all its quirks [for instance, a single unit of 120 YC should probably be able to, by itself, envelop a Daimyo+hatamato rather than fighting it just on one front with numerous YCs patiently waiting in back]); I doubt my P2/450 could. ;-)



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He is justly served; It is a poison temper'd by himself.