Total War BlogKingdoms: Community Q&A
Hi guys,
To kick start our new Official CA Discussion Thread on our Forums, we asked the community what they would like to find out more about regarding Medieval II: Total War Kingdoms. Your replies were fast and plentiful, and before long we had four pages full of great questions. Instead of just picking out a couple of questions from the list, Brendan Rogers (aka Caliban) from CA Oz stepped in and kindly answered 31 of them! For the benefit of those who may have missed it, here is the Q&A in full:
“Hi everyone,
I thought I would stop by and answer some of the questions raised in this thread. I'm really sorry if I haven't answered your question, I will try and answer the most commonly asked questions.
How will you be able to control multiple armies on the field?
Via the control multiple armies feature. You will have to option to control the reinforcement armies before you enter the battlefield. From there you can swap between armies and issue orders to your reinforcements.
Will you be able to fight the new factions against the old factions in multiplayer?
Yes, in multiplayer and custom battles you can choose most of the older factions to play as.
Will the new "control reinforcements" option be available in the "core" (original) campaign?
We are currently looking into it.
Will boiling-oil be brought back?
Yes Boiling oil will be back and available in all campaigns except Americas
Will there be historical battles?
There will be some multiplayer scenarios as well as some single player scenario battles. But no historical re-creations.
Will there be a multiplayer mode?
Yes, you can play multiplayer battles in each campaign as well as the hotseat mode.
Will money will be a problem for the Teutonic Order, which can only build castles ?
Castles will be the main source of unit production for the Order, however we are now looking at giving them the ability to upgrade their cities to increase their income. The outcome will be decided based on balance testing.
The English will have troubles with the 2h bug again, or will the patch fix that in both games ?
The 2H will be fixed in 1.2 as well as any future releases including Kingdoms.
The game will have a new soundtrack or use the one from Medieval 2 ?
Yes, there are new sound effects and so far, 35 new songs for Kingdoms composed in-house by our award winning Sound guys
Also, during the Crusades campaign will European crusading armies appear at random times throughout the campaign?
Yes, you will see a host of European factions arrive to take part in the crusade. Off the top of my head, Venice, England and France.
How many of the features in the expansion will be added also to the original game?
This is still unknown as of yet and being discussed due to balance reasons
Will you release the ***** Hot-Seat before Kingdoms so in the expansion we will see a real Multiplayer Campaign
You can still access the hotseat mode via command lines, but it won't be fully implemented until Kingdoms
* Will factions from the core game have new units, any new siege units, ships??
Yes! But you will all have to wait to find out what
Will Kingdoms be fully modable and will the new features be hardcoded? For example, could I make Ireland have no family tree or give Norway the ability to change religions if I wanted to?
In the Britannia Campaign we know of 5 factions that will be playable, will it be possible to add (mod) other factions into this?
You will be able to mod Kingdoms the same as M2 vanilla, there won't be any restrictions from modding the original M2 game to the expansion. We are looking to include more modding features in Kingdoms as well as implementing some features asked by the community. Some of the new features (most I think) will be modable.
Could you please add fires and famines to the descr_disasters events list, and also add floods, storms, fires and famines to the descr_events file for modding?
It will be added to the long list of community modding requests. Only some of the requests will make it in because of the huge amount of work involved to add them all.
What will the colour of my pants be when I play M2:TW Kingdoms?
Brown, if you're wearing any..
Please bring Burning Oil back.
Sure thing!
Please bring Sapping/Under Mining back
I already gave you one feature, don't get greedy!
Please answer these questions.
Is three ok?
Apparently from what they have said in interviews kingdoms is ment to be the most modable Totalwar project to date(notice word apparently)
Correct!
Well you be able to switch off/disable the hero's, or their abilities, for the people who do not want to play with them?
You don't have to use their abilities if you don't want to. Just don't press the button.
Will we see improved AI?
Yes, the upcoming patch will see a lot of big AI improvements, these will be carried over to Kingdoms.
Will the option to view cities be available again?
Unfortunately no, that feature was removed during the engine transition in M2.
Is there any way they can change the name to have the word "Invasion" in it?
Kingdoms Invasion? Probably not, sorry
Of the previously listed patch -"bug" repair requests, how many will be addressed? There are simply to many to list in one post. If you would (finally) fix the items listed in either "R&R" or the patch request posts this should make the day.
We are well aware of the community bug lists and we have been using these for some-time to help prioritise our in-house bug list. The upcoming patch will contain some of the top priority bug fixes, we will be including more in the kingdoms release as we get to them. I couldn't give you an exact number as of yet because we haven't finished.
Campaign modding - will we be able to add additional campaigns like we could in RTW, or will we have to stick to modding one of the grand campaigns like we have to in M2TW?
Yes it is now possible to have multiple campaigns in the one mod. It requires some menu work and maps to be placed in the correct folders. This is available in the leaked 1.2 and will be available in the upcoming patch.
Will the pope have any power and if so is it just gonna be the crusader and Teutonic campaign. can he excom faction still?
No, the papacy won't be included in the expansion pack, however there will be dialog from the pope but he won't have any direct influence over the campaigns.
In the Britannia Campaign, will there only be a map of Great Britain, or will Norway be included on the map as well (not only as an invading faction)?
Only the norwegian faction is available in Britannia, however you will be able to visit them in the Teutonic campaign as most of Scandinavia is featured on the campaign map.
Will the aztecs/native americans have their own distinct voices? I think in MTW2 they use the Mongol voice.
Yes! The Native Americans will have new unique voices in Kingdoms.
Will anyone from CA answer this thread?
I hope so, it's getting pretty damn long..
Again, sorry if I didn't get around to answering your question/s, I hope this atleast sheds a bit more light on the expansion and some of its features.
Caliban”
Thanks to everyone who took the time to ask a Medieval II: Total War Kingdoms related question (and to Brendan for answering them!). Head over to our Official CA Discussion Thread now to take part in more discussions!
Thanks,
Mark O’Connell
Multiplayer campaign? SOLD!
