Religion Continued
Q. We’ve heard a lot about the influence of the Pope. Can you describe some of the features of the religious system for non-catholic factions?
A. Both orthodox and muslim religions have priests, and religious buildings that they can use to spread their religion. Muslim factions can also create Jihads.
Q. You’ve spoken about how crusades work and how factions join them but how about Jihads, how do they work?
A. Jihads can be called my Muslim priests with a sufficient religion rating. They can be called against settlements owned by non-Muslim factions that have significant Muslim populations. Once a character decides to go on Jihad, he’ll have a range of low cost religious troops that he can recruit to the cause.
Diplomacy
Q. How has the diplomacy system improved from Rome, and how have you achieved this?
A. The diplomacy system in Medieval 2 has been improved to give the player a lot more information about how the AI player feels both about them, and about the offer on the table.
The diplomacy screen includes an array of new information, including how the other faction feels towards you. When you make an offer, there is an onscreen display how fair the AI considers the offer to be. The AI will be better inclined towards you if you make fair or generous offers, but sometimes you’ll be able to force them to accept unfavourable deals. Finally, after the deal is made, there’s audio and visual feedback about how your diplomatic rival felt about the transaction.
Q. Has the Diplomatic AI improved?
A. Yes, it has a much better memory now. Cheat it, or bully it, and it’ll hold a grudge. Treat it generously, and you’ll find it easier to make deals in future.
Q. Are there new offers and requests we can make? For example can we bribe other factions to rig papal elections?
A. You can bribe or bully other factions to vote for your candidate, or sell your own vote. The new Pope will remember who voted for him, and who against, so how to cast your vote requires some consideration if you’re not sure of winning yourself.
Q. How can a Princess be used for diplomatic means? What can be gained from marrying off a Princess to a rival faction’s General?
A. A royal marriage can be used in one of three ways. She can marry the heir or leader of another faction to cement an alliance, marry one of your own generals to improve his loyalty and make him part of the royal family, or attempt to marry another faction’s general, and bring him over to your side.
Princesses can also conduct diplomacy in the same way that diplomats can.
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Part 4 - Religion
Q. How will Religion feature in Medieval 2?
A. Religion was a huge part of medieval life. As a result the religious system in Medieval 2 has more depth than previous games in the series. As well as spreading the influence of their chosen religion and minimizing outbreaks of heresy, players will also have manage their relationship with the Pope to avoid the intervention of inquisitors and even excommunication. As the game progresses players will be able to have develop their religious characters to the point where they can even get their own Cardinal elected as Pope.
Q. How can I spread the religious influence of my faction?
A. You’ll be able to influence your population by constructing various religious buildings within your settlements. There are a huge number of new building types now available each being upgradable multiple times to open up new abilities and units. As examples, churches and mosques will spread your religion whilst building cathedrals and converting people to Catholicism will help you get on the good side of the Pope. These religious buildings also give you access to Priest characters who are agent characters or also help spread the influence of your religion.
Q. How do Priests work?
A.Priests are agents that can be used on the campaign map to spread your religion in their surrounding area. senior Catholic priests can become cardinals and get elected to the collage of cardinals. This can give the player influence in the Papacy and Priests can even get elected Pope, improving their original faction’s standing with the Papal States.
However there is always a possibility that Priest may lose his way and turn heretic, in which case they fall under AI control and spread heresy instead, undermining the established religion.
Q. What effect does heresy have?
A. If you are deemed to have a problem with heresy in your lands the Pope may send out an Inquisitor to deal with the situation. They’ll do a great job at reducing heresy but they may also denounce nearby characters, and have them tried and executed.
Q. How do I interact with the Pope?
A. The Pope will make various requests of you as the game progresses, and generally meddle in affairs. If you accede to his requests, he’ll like you, and if not he’ll become increasingly tiresome, and may even excommunicate you. Building cathedrals and converting people to Catholicism will also please him.
Having the Pope as an ally offers significant benefits. Players can turn to him to request that he warns off other factions from attacking you and he may even accept suggestions as to where to call a crusade.
Q. How do I get my own Pope elected?
A. When the existing Pope dies (for whatever reason) a new Pope is elected by the college of cardinals. If you have a cardinal of sufficiently high rank, he’ll be a candidate in the election. You can then negotiate with the other factions to get them to vote for your guy, or you can agree to vote for theirs.
Q. How do the crusades work?
A. Crusades will be far more of an “event” in Medieval 2 than they were in the original Medieval. The Pope will commission a crusade that all the catholic factions then have the option to join. The faction that captures the target first will gain considerable prestige and wealth as well as significantly boosting their standing with the Pope. As we’ve said, as you gain more influence with the Pope you can begin to request Crusades to be called on specific targets.
Players can choose specific armies and Generals to join the crusade and Generals involved in crusades can earn bonuses relating to chivalry and honour.
Part Three - The Campaign Game
Q. So how does the campaign map differ from that used in Rome?
A. We’ll look at the campaign map again in greater detail in the month’s ahead however, right now, we can say that the campaign map will be markedly different from that seen in Rome. Aside from a new graphical look, it will be busier as we’re adding several new types of agent characters including merchants, princesses and priests. While the map won’t become as cluttered as the original Medieval map became, we wanted to up the number of characters on the map in order to increase the options players have to interact with rival factions off the battlefield. Secondly, although initially the map appears to cover the same area as the map found in Rome, it will actually offer more land to conquer. Later in the game the map opens up and offers the opportunity to discover and conquer the Americas.
Q. How does the discovery of the New World work in the campaign?
A. Initially the New World will be hidden from the players and the squares of the Atlantic Ocean will be impassible. Late in the game players will be able to develop the technology to cross the ocean, discover America, and battle with the Aztecs.
Q. What does conquering the New World bring to the campaign game?
A. The faction that is successfully conquering the New World will be able to reap rich rewards. The new world has many unique and lucrative resources, such as tobacco and chocolate, not to mention gold. Dominating America will do wonders for your treasury, and converting all those pagans will impress the Pope. Being so far away, the faction that can defeat the Aztecs and establish a base there, will have a huge advantage defending it against other factions. The economic advantages that come from having a monopoly here will give that faction a huge boost dealing with the other old world factions.
Q. What other elements have been added to the turn-based game?
A. Aside from the New World and the new agents characters we’ve added to the map, we’ve introduced a new system for developing settlements, a new recruitment system, a new enhanced system for the treatment of religion, enhanced diplomacy, new trade options, improved missions, improved sabotage and espionage, improved AI, new tech tree buildings and more that we’ve either forgotten under the intense pressure of this FAQ or are keeping up our sleeves for the time being. As you can see though, there are improvements right across the board.
Q. How does the new settlement system work?
A. Medieval 2 introduces the option for players to develop their settlements either as a city or as castle. They both offer advantages and it’s a question of balancing the use of your settlements to suit such factors as map location, proximity to possible enemy factions and whether the player adopts a militaristic or economic approach to expansion.
To put it simply castles emphasize the military, and cities the economic. Build lots of castles, and your armies will be extremely potent. Build lots of cities and you’ll have to rely on dubious militias or mercenaries to protect your lands. On the other hand, you’ll have the money to buy off your opponents. Castles will require less management than cities but as the game develops cities will become more important, but redeveloping castles will be costly so the transition will need to be carefully managed. As a result there is a great deal more strategy involved as you expand your empire across the campaign map.
Q. What types of new buildings are being added?
A. One of the most significant additions we’ve made to the tech tree for Medieval 2 is the addition of Guild halls. There are various different types of guild that give different bonuses to your settlements. Each city can have only one guild that will give local bonuses to that city. As examples the assassin’s guild will increase the skill of assassins and some guilds will give access to extra units too.
In addition each faction can have one master guild for each guild type that gives bigger bonuses, some of which may apply across all the faction’s cities. Further to this, it is possible to build a grandmaster guild that is a sort of global HQ for that guild type. There can only be one grandmaster building for each guild in the world, so whoever gets it first will have an edge in that particular area.
Q. How will missions be assigned?
A. Missions are assigned by the Council of Nobles - this represents the great nobles who’s main role is give the player some guidance throughout the campaign by suggesting missions. Catholic nations will also be given missions by the Pope, with rewards or punishment depending on your standing with him.
Q. Talking of the Pope, what can you tell us about how religion is treated in Medieval 2?
A. Religion was certainly a vital part of Medieval life and so we’ve enhanced the way we treat religion in the game compared to previous Total War games. However, we’re going to keep you waiting for details on that right now. We’ll look at this in more detail in next week’s chapter of the FAQ when we look at religion and diplomacy.
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Part Two - The Battle Engine
Q. What engine does Medieval 2 use?
A. For Medieval 2 we’ve stripped down and totally refurbished the Rome engine. Medieval 2’s engine includes a complete upgrade of the battlefield rendering system, new methods for building and rendering cities while the combat animation system has also been heavily revised.
Q. How does the Medieval 2 engine compare in technical terms, to Rome: Total War?
A. The engine is almost completely unrecognisable compared to Rome. Overall textures are done to a much higher level, in fact, in general the texture resolution and polygon count is at least double those of Rome. The amount of detail in some the textures are amazing, right down to the names of programmers inscribed on gravestones in the city churchyard.
Q. So what are the most striking differences?
A. The improvements are evident the second you fire up your first battle. One of the first things you'll notice is that in Medieval 2 the armies of clones that have been evident in the Total War series until now, have been removed. Units are now made up of soldiers that are individuals. Each model is constructed from a variety of heads, bodies and limbs. The engine combines these together to make each man far more unique. On top of this there are also multiple variants for shields and weapons too, so each soldier has character and each unit of men looks and behaves like a realistic group of soldiers. Armour and weapon upgrades are also evident when you look on your units in battle. This introduces some individuality to the soldiers in order to ramp up the realism and immersion of the huge battles.
The rendering of settlements is also vastly improved. The period is known for its monumental castles and cities and we set out to do them justice by ensuring that we represent them in-game in a far more realistic manner then has previously been seen in the Total War series. In Medieval 2 cities and castles will be built around the environment, incorporating cliffs and slopes in their layout. This not only makes for a far more realistic representation of settlements, it also introduces new layers of strategy when it comes to siege situations.
Q. How exactly has the combat animation system improved?
A. We’ve made some huge strides here. We’ve captured 1000’s of mo-capped animations which allows us to create synchronized attacks with defenses and fatalities. Sequenced attack combos also allow the soldier to string together attacks to cut a swathe through his opponents. A swordsman might do a swing to the left, a swing to the right, followed by a stab to the stomach knocking his opponent down. He might then spin around, and deliver a merciless finishing strike to the enemy while he’s lying helpless on the ground.
Attack failures have also been added so that a strike is deflected when blocked successfully by a defender. This makes the combat feel more solid thanks to the direct cause-and-effect visual feedback. You’ll see these kind of moves being executed all over the battlefield and as soldiers fall you’ll see those still standing continually scanning their surroundings for their next kill. These kind of touches make the huge scale battles so much more realistic and immersive whether you’re zoomed in on the front line or looking on from a distance.
There are also heaps of animation variants, so men standing around can fidget when idle, taunt from the back of a melee when winning and look around in fear when outnumbered. These give visual cues as to the mental state of each individual and add emotive depth to the battlefield experience.
Q. What new terrain advantages are being implemented and how?
A. In general, there will be more terrain features on the battlefield, with impassable cliffs and banks, walls and hedges and more buildings. The wise commander will be able to use these features to great advantage to protect his flanks and front, and to disrupt enemy manoeuvres.
Q. How big will Medieval 2's battles become?
A. At this stage it’s impossible to put an exact figure on it the maximum size of a battle. However, as always, Total War is scalable to the hardware you have available.
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Part One – General Information
Q. Where is Medieval 2 being developed?
A. Medieval 2 is being primarily developed by Creative Assembly’s Australian studio, based in Brisbane, Queensland. We currently have 37 people in the team, many of which have worked on previous Total War games. The team is split between Animation, Art, Audio, Design, Production, Programming and QA.
Q. When did work on Medieval 2 begin?
A. Work began on Medieval 2 shortly after Rome: Total War was completed.
Q. Why did you decide to revisit the Medieval period this time around?
A. There were several reasons behind our decision to revisit the Medieval period. Firstly it is in many ways the perfect setting for a Total War game. It has a wide range of unit types, technological progress, constant warfare, treachery, intrigue and the clash of civilizations. Then of course there’s the fact that the original Medieval was immensely popular with Total War fans.
Also in the four years since the launch of the original, our technology has improved hugely and on the battle side we can now really capture the colour and pageantry of the period. We feel we’re now in a position to really do justice to the Medieval period.
Q. So how will Medieval 2 improve on the Total War formula?
A. We’ll touch on each element of the game in a lot more detail as we extend this FAQ over the month’s ahead. Right now however, we can safely say that Medieval 2 will raise the bar for Total War games right across the board.
There are of course new factions, new units and new unit abilities that come into play in the most spectacular battles ever to grace the series. For the first time the clone armies are removed – Medieval 2 will see individual troops built from unique heads and body parts, sporting weapon and armour upgrades and all the colour and heraldry from the period. They’ll behave and react more realistically than ever thanks to thousands of motion captured animations that depict vicious finishing moves and last ditch defensive blocks.
Siege warfare will be even more intense thanks to the new settlement rendering techniques that will see vast castles and cities built upon hills and aside cliffs. These will introduce new layers of defence will make besieging such settlements even more epic affairs as attackers fight through walls and city streets using an armoury of siege weapons, including heavy cannons. They’ll be improved AI on both the battlefield and on the campaign map.
Talking of the campaign map there are new agents, improved diplomacy, improved trade, and a host of new buildings added to the tech tree, new sabotage and espionage options with full assassination movies so you can witness the cold blooded killing or bungled attempts first hand. A new system of religion that will see players having to manage their relationship with the papal states, embarking on crusades commissioned by the Pope or turning their back on him and plotting to place their own pope in power. Plus a new settlement system will allow players to develop their settlements as castles for financial whack or castles for military might, a feature that will undoubtedly make for a more engaging and deep campaign game.
Then of course there is the discovery and invasion of the New World, battles with the Aztecs, the new multiplayer options, new historical battles and lots more that we want to keep up our sleeves right now.
There’s no doubt that this will be the greatest Total War experience ever.
Q. Will I need to buy a brand new PC to play the game?
A. Certainly not. As for all Total War games we’re aiming for a minimum spec that will strike a balance between utilising the latest graphics technology without forcing a hardware upgrade for the player. As always we’re making sure that the game’s effects will be scalable so that performance is maintained on a wide range of specifications.
Q. What historical period will be presented in the game?
A. The grand campaign will span four and half centuries of history from the years 1080-1530. It begins with the golden age of chivalry and the crusades, spans the Mongol invasion and the invention of gunpowder, and ends with gun toting professional armies, the renaissance and the discovery of America.
Q. How many campaigns will there be and how will they differ from one another?
A. There is one grand campaign planned, as well as a prologue tutorial. The grand campaign itself will be playable as any of number of factions, with different gameplay challenges for each one, so while the initial setup will be the same, the course of history should change significantly.
Q. How many factions will there be and how many will be playable?
A. Currently there are 21 playable and non-playable factions included in the game. These include several that weren’t available in the original Medieval, including Scotland, Portugal and Venice. The final list list of playable factions is yet to be finalised.
Q. Will Medieval 2 use the same risk style map from the original Medieval or the 3D map we saw in Rome?
A. Medieval 2 will use an enhanced version of the 3D map as first seen in Rome. However the campaign map will be extended this time around to include the Americas that can be unlocked later in the game.
Q. Will there be a multiplayer campaign game?
A. Medieval 2 won’t include a multiplayer campaign game. It’s without doubt an enticing idea but we feel that a fully implemented campaign game just wouldn’t be practical and would take too long to play out. Right now we’d rather concentrate on features that we know will be enjoyed by the majority of Total War players.
Q. So what can you tell us about the multiplayer options?
A. At this point in time we’re keeping the details under wraps. We can say that we plan to vastly improve the ease of which players get online and get into battles as well as improving their overall multiplayer experience. We can’t go into further details on this as yet because the concept is still in testing but watch this space!
Q. If there won’t be any real time naval battles, how are you tackling naval warfare?
A. Creating full-scale 3D naval battles is a huge task. Creating a system that befits and works within the Total War series is an even bigger one. Subsequently we decided not to embark on such a task this time around. Naval combat will be handled similarly to the system employed in Rome but polished and tweaked.