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New screenshots, interview

Not much new stuff in the interview unfortunately, we've read most of it (like this) before:-

The action begins around 1700 and continues throughout the 18th century and dips into the 19th. We wouldn't want to put a fixed end point where we stop the player from continuing, and we have included some 19th century technologies that can be researched. We always want the player to be able to take history in a different direction, and we have to allow for the possibility that the player will drive tech research faster than happened in reality.

The scale is a lot greater than previous Total War titles. The campaign map now encompasses not only the whole of Europe and the middle-East, but also North America and the Caribbean, and the Indian subcontinent. It's a truly epic canvas for the gamer to play out their strategies for world domination.

This is new:-

: We have a huge array of new units and types. The abilities they have can also change as your technological level grows. For example, we have dragoon units -- mounted men that you can order to dismount and fire and attack the enemy as infantry. Then you can order them to mount up again and chase across the field on horseback.

We have artillery units, some of which can be limbered up and moved around the field at speed by teams of horses. You can develop all kinds of exotic ammo for them to fire.

Line infantry units can be ordered to form the classic hollow square formation, which protects them against cavalry at the cost of reducing their ability to focus fire in one direction. And much much more!

and

The campaign map for example is treated in a completely different way, and is no longer based on Rome's grid system -- it's completely freeform. We've also taken buildings out of the region capitals and placed them on the map itself, so they are visible at a glance, easily upgradeable straight from the map -- and they are individually attackable. We've streamlined and improved large parts of the campaign game such as recruitment, trade and diplomacy.

While it looks great, it looks like you are going to have to get your hands on a supercomputer to play it.

Zor

Zor wrote:While it looks great, it looks like you are going to have to get your hands on a supercomputer to play it.

Zor

It'll be fine. Every Total War game has been quite playable on less-than-top-tier PCs.

Except Medieval 2, which was barely functional on lowest detail on my old 6600GT.

Stark wrote:Except Medieval 2, which was barely functional on lowest detail on my old 6600GT.

Those grass textures did the most damage to framerates it looks like.

Vympel wrote:

Zor wrote:While it looks great, it looks like you are going to have to get your hands on a supercomputer to play it.

Zor

It'll be fine. Every Total War game has been quite playable on less-than-top-tier PCs.

I hope so, this year I can't afford a new Pc for a game

Meh,don't worry about it, current gen game screenshots always have FULL AA and AF, and thus look like fucking Oil Paintings. But it won't look that amazing in practice, and you can probably rape the graphics to gain performance anyway.

If the game starts in 1700, that would mean the War of Spanish Succession. It would be interesting to have a major war from the get-go.

As long as they can give us a functioning AI on the battle and campaign maps it will be fine. If not then it's probably not worth even buying.

Anything new about sea battles?

What I'm worried about is the lenght of a single turn by endgame.

In Medieval 2, some turns already took more than half an hour to play out. But here you've got India and the Caribbean, too!

PeZook wrote:What I'm worried about is the lenght of a single turn by endgame.

In Medieval 2, some turns already took more than half an hour to play out. But here you've got India and the Caribbean, too!

Excessively long turns are boring only when it is Civilization 3 where your repeating tedious things. If the strategy map mode is "alive" like a Sim City game it would be as much fun as the battle itself.

Sarevok wrote:

PeZook wrote:What I'm worried about is the lenght of a single turn by endgame.

In Medieval 2, some turns already took more than half an hour to play out. But here you've got India and the Caribbean, too!

Excessively long turns are boring only when it is Civilization 3 where your repeating tedious things. If the strategy map mode is "alive" like a Sim City game it would be as much fun as the battle itself.

Personally I prefer the Shogun/Miedieval I system - towards the latter stages of Rome/Med2 it was getting horribly tedious to keep track of 3 or more dozen armies across the map along with god knows how many territories, and worst of all, the few dozen other characters. We've all had "so-and-so dies of old age on the frontier doing absolutely nothing after being forgotten for 20 turns" happen to us after all...

AniThyng wrote:Personally I prefer the Shogun/Miedieval I system - towards the latter stages of Rome/Med2 it was getting horribly tedious to keep track of 3 or more dozen armies across the map along with god knows how many territories, and worst of all, the few dozen other characters. We've all had "so-and-so dies of old age on the frontier doing absolutely nothing after being forgotten for 20 turns" happen to us after all...

Indeed. There are diplomats who I just totally forget about after I've sent them to the far corners getting map info and trade rights.

They really need to take a page from Civilization (at least 3, I know that) here: auto-scroll to units with turns left. Or do something, like the "Construction Complete" and "Town Grows" messages for your settlements. I mean Hell, I've managed to forget I had an army somewhere, much less diplomats, spies, and assassins.

AniThyng wrote: Personally I prefer the Shogun/Miedieval I system - towards the latter stages of Rome/Med2 it was getting horribly tedious to keep track of 3 or more dozen armies across the map along with god knows how many territories, and worst of all, the few dozen other characters. We've all had "so-and-so dies of old age on the frontier doing absolutely nothing after being forgotten for 20 turns" happen to us after all...

The problem with late game grinding is two fold. First strategy ceases to be a matter when your a 30+ province sized empire. All your enemies are pitiful 3-4 province sized countrys. This is caused by the poor AI that never seem to expand beyond starting provinces. Secondly the characters and their traits added spice to early games when you believe you are commanding real historical people. Yet by late game their personality becomes reduced to numbers and quirks. These two critical issues must be addressed in future TW games through superior AI and fleshing out the character system to create lively characters with motives, beliefs and realistic personalities.

Micro is bad, if CA weren't creatively bankrupt they could actually implement some UI tools or game mechanics to reduce late-game workload.

But they won't, because it seems they had a good idea ten years ago.

Merchants was always super annoying. You could have some army walk through them, which would break their link to the resource they were on, and you wouldn't be told, and they'd die of old age having lost you ~900 florins or something a turn for decades.

Begs the question ... why the fuck would an army walking through the tile break their link in the first place?

Vympel wrote: Begs the question ... why the fuck would an army walking through the tile break their link in the first place?

Probably has something to do with him running for his life with his gold

...or just bad coding practices.

While it surprises me to no end, I agree with Stark here. Rather than more gimmicks, CA should concentrate on making the interface better. Frankly, sea battles will be cool, but if all they do is add another two hours to an endgame turn full of micro, then fuck 'em.

I just hope I can see some sort of supply lines, just to ensure the AI army don't just bypass my army stationed nearby...

I don't want to see scenario like a spanish army all the way in egypt or something like we see in the original game.

And us name your army for once, makes it easier to keep track of our armies.

ray245 wrote:I just hope I can see some sort of supply lines, just to ensure the AI army don't just bypass my army stationed nearby...

I don't want to see scenario like a spanish army all the way in egypt or something like we see in the original game.

And us name your army for once, makes it easier to keep track of our armies.

As mentioned above by rogueice, merely a system like Civ's "next unit with moves left" would do wonders. Naming armies will be fun..for a while. When you have upwards of a dozen armies plus a few dozen reinforcement armies, naming WILL NOT HELP.

Stark wrote:Micro is bad, if CA weren't creatively bankrupt they could actually implement some UI tools or game mechanics to reduce late-game workload.

But they won't, because it seems they had a good idea ten years ago.

What's an idle unit list, Stark?

At least the game's tactical interface is mostly non suck for unit management. Let's face it, most of us came to Total War for the promise of living the tacticool psuedo realistic battles that did not involve capturing all the Tiberium and memorizing the tech list before your opponent does.

That being said, what we came for is not single handedly what we're still around for. The strategic interface is now a whole half of the game. As everyone has pointed it, it's still in need of some development improvements. One thing I look forwards to for Empire is actually being the ruler of a country. In M2TW and R:TW you end up feeling more like a Supreme Allied Commander because you don't really control any domestic issues other than raising taxes so you have "moaneyz for ma horsies"

As far as I'm concerned I don't really want to be ruler of the Empire - the fun of Total War for me is still crushing enemy armies in tactical battles - naval combat was long overdue, but the inclusion of naval combat cannot come at the expense of some also long overdue interface improvements. The lack of an idle unit key is completely unacceptable.

CaptHawkeye wrote:[
That being said, what we came for is not single handedly what we're still around for. The strategic interface is now a whole half of the game. As everyone has pointed it, it's still in need of some development improvements. One thing I look forwards to for Empire is actually being the ruler of a country. In M2TW and R:TW you end up feeling more like a Supreme Allied Commander because you don't really control any domestic issues other than raising taxes so you have "moaneyz for ma horsies"

I would say that I wouldn't play Total War if not for the outside strategic mode - setting up a set piece battle with arbitrary forces lacks the drama of you nursing a full strength army through a rough campaign, till at the end all you have left is a few hardened, elite survivors holding out till reinforcements fresh from the heartland arrive to consolidate.

I just wish it wasn't so damn tedious to do this in the mid-late game.

The worst thing for me is that I love the endgame of MTW2, with tercio formations and musketeers and crushing the Aztecs and so forth, except the game is so hugely tedious moving a dozen armies and fighting eight battles a turn that I give up rather quickly.

More automation would be salvation.

PeZook wrote:The worst thing for me is that I love the endgame of MTW2, with tercio formations and musketeers and crushing the Aztecs and so forth, except the game is so hugely tedious moving a dozen armies and fighting eight battles a turn that I give up rather quickly.

More automation would be salvation.

Or non cheating AI. It seems like no matter how crushed an opponent is, they somehow ALWAYS find a way to get full stack armies onto the field to meet yours. I got so tired of it i'd always have 3+ full stacks right next to eachother so I could just hit the "auto battle" key and move on.

It's either that, or the AI never actually sallies forth for a "decisive battle" like the player dies. Most of the time you end up facing single groups with little in the way of support. Strategically, it always felt like I was fighting the same pointless skirmish over and over again. I kept waiting for that moment when I would "break the AI's back". But no matter who I faced, it never came. The AI never seems to really comit itself to crushing your forces as much as it wants to just wear them down. This doesn't happen in Quick Battle or Historic though.

Then again, medieval era warfare wasn't really characterized by single all out assaults which broke a nation completely. That is more Impieral era.