Vympel wrote:
Luckily, Core2Duo, here I come- spring's just hit and I've already turned down the CPU, but MBM says the thing is running at a toasty 60-63 degrees celsius most of the time. Though I feel absolutely dejected that they're already talking about Quad cores. Jeez, slow down, let me enjoy it!
You'll love the C2D. I just installed mine last night (E6600), with a Scyth Ninja heatsink, and runs 35C under full load on both cores (no overclocking - yet). I wouldn't worry about Quad cores yet; they'll be expensive for a while, and I have the feeling that even Alan Wake (which Intel used to show off quad core) and Crysis will run well on mid to end dual cores (the devs would be stupid if they didn't).
Now back to regularly scheduled topic: Ride them down like grass!!!!
Vympel wrote:Updated thread title and added my rabid Medieval pro-Greek bias.
I have a guilty pleasure to admit to; after I conquer the map with Byzantium ... I'm playing the Turks, and you can be sure that I'm not stopping at the gates of friekin' Vienna!
Η ζωή, η ζωή εδω τελειώνει!
"Science is one cold-hearted bitch with a 14" strap-on" - Masuka 'Dexter'
"Angela is not the woman you think she is Gabriel, she's done terrible things"
"So have I, and I'm going to do them all to you." - Sylar to Arthur 'Heroes'
In (sort of) related news, my damn friend who I'm getting my new PC from still hasn't gotten all the damn parts. It's been three weeks now. He's very apologetic but it's really pissing me off. He told me by email (as of course, he went overseas for a week and didn't even tell me) that the computer would be built before he got back today. I ring him up today and see what's going on, and it turns out his secretary was supposedly sick and so the order for the video card didn't go out. So he has to chase it up on Monday.
I should've imposed a discount condition for late delivery, this is absurd. He's lucky M2TW hasn't come out yet, or I'd strangle him!
And what are my alternatives? Play a heretic Catholic faction instead? I think not!
EDIT :: I plan on 'Allah Ackbur-ing' my way all the way to the New World, and then, I'm gonna dance the macarena to celebrate my victory!
Η ζωή, η ζωή εδω τελειώνει!
"Science is one cold-hearted bitch with a 14" strap-on" - Masuka 'Dexter'
"Angela is not the woman you think she is Gabriel, she's done terrible things"
"So have I, and I'm going to do them all to you." - Sylar to Arthur 'Heroes'
Pfeh! I plan to create an everlasting empire under the White Eagle, stretching from the steppes of Russia to jungles of the Amazon! Why play the silly greeks or those sand-eating Turks when you can battle massive Mongol hordes on gigantic eastern steppes?
I can't wait to face the Golden Horde in full 3D...and cut them all down
Pfft, first mod I want to see is one where they add 20 years to the time line, then we get the great oppertunity of Henry VIII giving the finger to the Pope
EBC: Northeners, Huh! What are they good for?! Absolutely nothing!
Cybertron, Justice league...MM, HAB SDN City Watch: Sergeant Detritus
Days Unstabbed, Unabused, Unassualted and Unwavedatwithabutchersknife: 0
Down with Clone Armies
By Jason Dalton
Senior 3D Artist, Creative Assembly Australia
With the foundation for 3D unit models already laid down in the Rome: Total War engine, we were able to take a step back from it and ask ourselves what features we would like to add and what would give a more exciting look to the battle experience. One thing that immediately stood out to us was the "clone armies." Basically, in Rome you had one model per unit type, which was multiplied by the number of men in that particular unit.
For example, a unit of 60 levy spearmen in the Barbarian Invasion expansion would have been created by using one character model representing a spearmen and one diffuse texture cloned 60 times to form that one unit. This method looked fine from a distance, but zoom in on your battle, and you really notice that your spearmen all look exactly the same.
What we are aiming to do in Medieval II is to give each soldier a more-unique look, personality, and individuality. We came up with several methods to go about doing this. With the multiple body parts, each soldier model's variations, on average, consist of five to seven different heads/faces, three torsos, three sets of arms, and three pairs of legs. These are combined to make the base soldier models for each unit of men.
To add even more variety among the soldiers in one unit, we have given them up to 10 different shield variations as well as weapon model/texture variants. Shields and weapons are now separate from the unit model file itself. This allows us to simply edit a text file to change what shield type/weapons are available to a particular unit.
As the battles rage on, individual soldiers will get dirtier and bloodier depending on what they've done during the battle. So if a soldier has been marching for a long time, he will no longer look fresh and clean as he did in Rome. The same can be said for a soldier that has received many hits in battle and is still alive--his clothes, weapon, and shield will become more and more drenched in blood.
Meanwhile, when you upgrade a unit's armor and weapons in the campaign game you will be able to see these upgrades on the unit models themselves on the battlefield. So an upgraded unit of crossbowmen will look quite different from a regular unit of the same type of crossbowmen.
And with the graphics engine having been overhauled, we can now use the latest shader technology to render our units a lot more realistically. This includes normal mapping, specular mapping, pseudo high dynamic range environment mapping, and self-shadowing. Thanks to all these innovations, the unit models are already looking superb and can only get better as the project comes closer to completion.
Brotherhood of the Bear | HAB | Mess | SDnet archivist |
yes, but can I play as temunjin and with my army of china and mongolia really conquer the world. Drive my enemies before me, take their horses, their land and take their crying women folk into my arms?
The scariest folk song lyrics are "My Boy Grew up to be just like me" from cats in the cradle by Harry Chapin
The Yosemite Bear wrote:yes, but can I play as temunjin and with my army of china and mongolia really conquer the world. Drive my enemies before me, take their horses, their land and take their crying women folk into my arms?
Uh, No. go play Shogun
EBC: Northeners, Huh! What are they good for?! Absolutely nothing!
Cybertron, Justice league...MM, HAB SDN City Watch: Sergeant Detritus
Days Unstabbed, Unabused, Unassualted and Unwavedatwithabutchersknife: 0
"The rifle itself has no moral stature, since it has no will of its own. Naturally, it may be used by evil men for evil purposes, but there are more good men than evil, and while the latter cannot be persuaded to the path of righteousness by propaganda, they can certainly be corrected by good men with rifles."
I like the idea of unit upgrades being visible in battle- a lot of the unit previews in the IGN faction feature list their armor as being of multiple types, so you might have plate equipped Kataphraktoi where before it was mail
Pablo Sanchez wrote:I'm actually a little miffed by the preview, it seems like the the Byz are once again going to get screwed in the late game by units that never really evolve. No gunpowder, no improvements to Kataphraktoi, and so on. Hopefully a mod will be released to give them "fantasy" troops.
I was complaining about that bullshit back when the new website went up- it's had a Faction blurb about the Byzantines up for a while, and it made it obvious they were going to do the same thing they did with Medieval. It's really annoying, but I'll just have to win the game the hard way regardless.
Damnit. Under Manuel I Komenos the Byzantine army was the most advanced. Even at the end in 1453, they employed fire arms for the defence of Constantinople. I heard they dumbed them down in the last game and it happens again. Grumble. Game mechanics and balancing...
To continue my rant, the game designers obviously neglected the fact that the Byzantine Empire, like the Roman Empire before it, employed a standing army and funded by the state and obviously they couldn't use all the fancy armour those European aristocrats used since those aristocrats only funded armour for their own uses and the lower rungs used chain mail or what not that was cheaper.
How dare they! Especially when the Italian Renaissance was in no part a result of Byzantine and Arab scholarship. It was true during the Iconoclasm there was stagnation, but under the Macedonian Dynasty, they recovered their strength and survived, only to be defeated by treachery. Damn Venetian Doge.
Conquistadores are the hardy pioneers that set out to conquer America. Although driven primarily by greed, they have exhibited exceptional bravery, cunning and resilience. With their horses, steel half-plate armour, lances, and razor-sharp steel swords, these men are absolutely devastating against the indigenous warriors of Mexico. They can only be recruited in America.
Being overthrown by their own palace guard is a risk faced by many rulers. One way to prevent this is to hire guards from outside of their own cultures, who cannot hope to wield power themselves. Thus, the Sultans of the Moors hire Christian Knights to protect them. Their prowess in battle is an added bonus.
Italians are world renowned for their love of the crossbow, and none more so then the Genoese. Milanese commanders value these crossbowmen highly, thus they equip them with brigandine armour and the large Pavise-style shield. For use in melee, Genoese Crossbowmen are also equipped with a long sword.
Strangely enough, the older ones- the Zweihander, Trebizond Archer, Pikeman, etc are no longer listed. Odd.
