Multiplayer Campaign

[Swoosh So]

Although the reveiws from players of the new game are excellent, And it seems to be a fine game (although i havent got it yet), i cant help but feel dissapointed by the lack of a multiplayer campaign, I know they said it was difficult to do but... wouldent it be just adding another player turn in the game and having the host and other players computers sharing each others moves? I just feel if there was a multiplayer campaign medieval would be so much more revered and better received around the world, because lets face it single player gaming is nothing compared to a human opponent, ive been offline for ages now and my pc is used for printing and not much else (except the occasional game of shogun).

boohoo Oh well ill be happy on the release date on friday anyways...


Swoooooooooooooooooooooooosh

Fear the Wolves

[LordTed]

I will be pleased as well howl

[Swoosh So]

Still playing low koku ted?

hooooooooooooooooooooowl

[Kraellin]

swooshers,

yup. i agree and this has become the holy grail for all us old timers to the game. not being a coder, i can only guess at the true complexities of doing such a feat.

when playing my first mtw campaign i was sitting there building this and that, spying on every other faction, sending emissaries, conquering lands and all those things a king does to ensure his heirs will have a better life and i couldnt help but go, 'man, would this be fun if i could play against real folks!'. imagine magy sitting in the northeast with his mongol hordes bearing down on the world, and yuuki sitting in england with a large trading/invading fleet ready to pounce on any weak postions from the sea. tosa is sitting in hungary, preparing to counter magy's onslaught, while also protecting his south from kocmoc's byzantines. spies and counter-spies. intrigue, assassinations, feignts and counter-feignts, real time negotiations, alliances, betrayals, hidden deals and broken promises...it would be, could be, mammoth.

even with just auto-calc'ed battles, i'd be willing to play that sort of game on a pay-per basis on some dedicated servers.

something someone said in another thread got me thinking about this again, and i began to wonder if we could get CA to break into this on a gradual basis; just take it a little bit at a time. perhaps, if we forget about the entire campaign map and agents and so on for a moment, and said, ok, let's just make the multiplayer aspect a bit more real, we could start something here. let's take just our normal 16 units in multi, but base the purchase of these units not on a fixed money amount as set by the host, but on an abtracted country/province sort of thing. you never see this country, but it would produce an income. this income could be used for upgrades to the province in the form of buildings and land improvements and so on. you then buy your army based on this and what type of buildings and improvements you've made.

now, backing up a bit, this would have to be one continuous sort of multiplayer game in the foyer. if you drop, escape, quit, that player is out and no way to get back in. battles would be fought as normal, but after each battle you would return not to the foyer proper, but to your host campaign setup. the battle results are updated and you keep your army, whatever is left of it, still as your army.

the timing and 'turns' are what would be difficult to program, from my thinking. how many battles would one person have to face with that same army in one 'turn'? who would he have to face first if invaded by more than one player at a time? could there be a small overall campaign map placed in the host room to display ownerships and armies and so on so that folks would have some idea where things are?

i know magy has stated a LOT of these same ideas in differnt threads already. his idea for keeping your same army with its losses from prior battles is a very good one for multi. what we'd be looking for in this simpler version of a multi campaign, is a way to 'stream' the effects in one continous multi game, so that results carry over into from action to action. by starting simple and expanding upon it in every new patch, expansion pack, total war sequel, we might eventually arrive at a full multiplayer camapaign.

hopefully, mtw will be a huge success, thus giving the dev guys a little economic leeway to play with new ideas in all of this. and if it's not, maybe i'll put together an international corporation to sponsor them :) god, we are addicts, are we not :)

K.


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The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.

[Swoosh So]

Lol krae you have sold me on the dream, hope target and longjohn get sold too, Just as a point I would be willing to pay an extra 30 pounds for a medieval multiplayer campaign perhaps as an expansion pack, i bet other players would too, so it might be worth cdt or whomever i forget( spent too long in the offline wilderness) to think about it.


Swooooooooooooooooooooooooosh missin all my peeps from all clans ugly or otherwise!

[MagyarKhans Cham]

I know my Khan is busy mailing with the ugliest of teh ugly, Elmo about tis subject.

one brainstorm idea could be, to break it down into 2 parts. the economic and the battle part.

there should be teams of players where some like to do the economic and intrique part and some do teh battles. the economists divide the money between their armies, builders, spies and so on. the battle-guys go out on campaigns, directed by their teams goals what to conquer.

but for this idea u need people who like the strategic part more than teh battling part.

there are more ideas, but our Khan wants to see the game firstly as well. he still believes it can be done, esp with the experience from former campaigns. but a consideration should be, the clancampaigns may be to personal and all but eventually they are the best remembred cuz it creates some sort of stress. it makes them and the battles more epic. but in a new campaign some "elements" (read doubtful clans) should be left out.

[RageMonsta]

Monsta wants to be part of the dream Krae was having...Monsta feels left out...

can Monsta be sat in RageVille with the lads drinking beer and eating head soup....then invading America and taking away all the MTW so we dont have to wait this long...?

'Magyar is invading' screams the serving girl'....'oh...invite him in for a pint then'...say RageStorm.

On the matter of the campaign...can somebody not just design a mod that can keep track of the movement and size of armies as they move around a map...we can calculate the battles ourselves...this way we can advance in our own versions of the campaign....it doesnt even have to be part of the TW system...just a mod like the log file reader......Monsta p.c dumb..and insult numb...was this a stupid idea?

(edit) stress in campaign...what you mean..is it like when Monsta and Krast sat for 8 hours debating a single move for the next turn (truth) or is it like trying to get Tera to accept a plan without him claiming all the riches for himself.....and we managed this but only after a week of barter(truth)and a bout 500 e-mails (half truth it was 250).

[This message has been edited by RageMonsta (edited 08-29-2002).]