CA: What we're up to update (Q&A thread)

[Steph]

I have reworked my map proposal a little.



@ Craig or other CA guy:
1) If you want I volunteer to compile a map proposal, I can do all the research for you, draw the borders, find the cities, ports, etc.
2) Can you get feedback from your map team and tell us what could be realistically asked, or if something is really too much work?
Example:
- Splitting a region in two
- Adding towns / ports
- Correct position of towns / ports
- Adding region in the "grey area", such as Anatolia in Turkey, or Crete
- Expanding the map to the South to sea North Africa/ Egypt
- Adding a new faction such as Morroco.

Are all these demands on the same footing, or would some require a lot more work? For instance, I hope the "grey shroud" for Turkey can be easily lifted (ie it's a kind of mask but there is already some terrain there) but perhaps I'm mistaken.

Some feedback about how much work is required for each of these tasks would help us to understand what we could ask or not.

Also, can you ask them if the work is proportional to the number of regions we want to ask? Does adding 10 regions take 10 times longer than adding one region?

[Humble Warrior]

Interesting...

[H Con]

I've got a question regarding the unit animation

In battle, I'm actually fine with the way battle is at the moment; a lot of duels.

When a battle is won, and I'm hunting down 3-500 routing troops, those animations suddenly become a nuisance. In Medieval II, my troops could mop up routers while still moving, but in Shogun 2, my troops have to approach the routers, stop, "load", kill, stop, wait for the animation to finish, and go to the next guys. Add the fact that the routers suddenly split up, and your men don't prioritize by density of routers, and over half of the routers get out of the battlefield as a result.

Could you change this?

[DUKE OF CAXIAS]

Hi Craig, first of all congratulations ! You are doing a good job with the community. I would like to ask you two question regarding ship models. Some modders stated that is impossible to implement new ship models in Empire and Napoleon, is it true? if not, could CA provide some information about how implement new ship models?

Keep you good job!

[PROMETHEUS ts]

I have reworked my map proposal a little.



@ Craig or other CA guy:
1) If you want I volunteer to compile a map proposal, I can do all the research for you, draw the borders, find the cities, ports, etc.
2) Can you get feedback from your map team and tell us what could be realistically asked, or if something is really too much work?
Example:
- Splitting a region in two
- Adding towns / ports
- Correct position of towns / ports
- Adding region in the "grey area", such as Anatolia in Turkey, or Crete
- Expanding the map to the South to sea North Africa/ Egypt
- Adding a new faction such as Morroco.

Are all these demands on the same footing, or would some require a lot more work? For instance, I hope the "grey shroud" for Turkey can be easily lifted (ie it's a kind of mask but there is already some terrain there) but perhaps I'm mistaken.

Some feedback about how much work is required for each of these tasks would help us to understand what we could ask or not.

Also, can you ask them if the work is proportional to the number of regions we want to ask? Does adding 10 regions take 10 times longer than adding one region?

this map dont seems so accurate you split england in severall pieces when it was one single unified region and leave untouched other places , if you split you split for all not for just some areas , anyway I doubt they will listen to one request petition only .... and they already made this period , probably they will move on another for the next , I hope for Medieval 3 as is perfect for the actual system of avatar customization , blood, swordfighting etc .... I wouldn't depreciate tough also an other expansion on Shoguntw or a minigame n the secession war in US with some other small scenarios around the world in 1860 ... like for one Unification of Italy , Franco Prussian war , colonial wars etc....

[Cozur]

Question: It seems a lot of time and effort is put into making these elaborate 3D maps. Why?

Seems to me that they don't really offer any sort of gameplay advantages, and their novelty last about 30 minutes. Why not divert all these resources to something else, like diplomacy or AI?

A simpler map would also allow for map modifications, and I really see a lot more advantages to this than disadvantages.

Crusader Kings 2 Map:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkkS94Xcteg

[Steph]

this map dont seems so accurate you split england in severall pieces when it was one single unified region and leave untouched other places , if you split you split for all not for just some areas ,

I split many regions, not only England. I have 131 regions, where in vanilla its 77 . And I split where it was really needed. I don't see the point in splitting Oldenburg in two for instance.
England or Spain were very big, they need to be split more than some other regions which were already smaller.

[alhoon]

Q. Instead of giving a map editor, would you consider making a DLC just with an updated campaign map with more regions if you get enough demand?

As with any type of business, demand makes the world go round - so if enough people wanted it we’d be fools to not consider it.



Q2 Will you make the campaign map a little more modable?

The campaign map is without a doubt the trickiest thing to mod, because all of the pathfinding data is baked into it. We're thinking about these considerations for future titles, though, and you can bet your bottom dollar that the thoughts and needs of the community are right up there in terms of our considerations.

Q: When will modders be allowed to change the Empire map?

When they work out how! We'd love to see what the community can come up with. Modding the campaign map will not be an easy challenge though (not by design, but by consequence).

THANKS CRAIG!!!

DLC with more regions/bigger map:
I would pay more than 25$ to get ETW with France and Spain, each divided to 3-4 regions, Muscovy, Persia, Anatolia broken to 2 regions and a few of the larger regions in India broken to smaller ones.

Also, there's a petition of people getting signs on whether they would buy a DLC for NTW with more regions. I would pay money for that too.

[Cozur]

I split many regions, not only England. I have 131 regions, where in vanilla its 77 . And I split where it was really needed. I don't see the point in splitting Oldenburg in two for instance.
England or Spain were very big, they need to be split more than some other regions which were already smaller.

Thing is that the regions you have made are not really all that accurate, from a historical view. Looks like you just used a ruler to divide everything up at random.

[alhoon]

Be aware a new campaign map is months of work, it would need to be a very large amount of demand for it to be viable, especially as it is for a game we have not made a campaign for since Peninsular.

Ouch...
Keep in mind that there are far more NTW and ETW players than frequent these forums! So, if the demand in the poll reaches 500-600 it means that you could expect many times more users to buy the map DLC. Charge it about 6-7$ and you would have made up the money spent in developing.

Also, keep in mind that this DLC would actually act as advertisement since people will tell again to their friends about the game, people will see the DLC in steam updates and all. So you may get a few more Total War customers, that would buy the games themselves, not just the DLC.

Creating a campaign map editor is the kind of thing that is incredibly easy to say and incredibly hard to actually do at the moment. It's hard for us to explain the reasons for this as there are so many of them, but I'll explain briefly.

There is all sorts of data compiled into the campaign map format - so creating a "map editor" wouldn't solve the problem (we actually use third-party modelling tools for creating the geometry), our database editor plugs into that, then there's campaign code, pathfinding code, locomotion, etc.

The situation is, coders need to be able to handle stuff in a different way to designers and input those changes without bottlenecks. So a map editor would actually likely slow us down.

Ouch again.

[Steph]

Thing is that the regions you have made are not really all that accurate, from a historical view. Looks like you just used a ruler to divide everything up at random.

First, I did not change the borders that were already there, just added new ones.
Second, the image is quite small, and I didn't want to spent too much time to follow exactly the rivers, etc since there's no reference on it.
This is more a concept of what regions would be needed to have something historically correct and interesting. If CA shows enough interest and ask me to make something more precise, I'll take time to place everything exactly, including cities, etc.
But only after they tell use what we can or cannot do (i.e. can we move existing border or just add new ones? How many regions would they agree to add).
Third, since some countries can't be devided to its clear historical division (we won't make the 130 French departements, and at that time regions didn't exist), there is some part of compromise when selecting how to divide some region.
And Fourth, don't hesitate to go the thread and make specific suggestion (i.e.: not it's not good, but how do you suggest to improve it), with reference or something and I'll take that into consideration.

[PietroMicca]

First, I did not change the borders that were already there, just added new ones.

This is more difficult than make the map form the beginning.

Second, the image is quite small, and I didn't want to spent too much time to follow exactly the rivers, etc since there's no reference on it.
This is more a concept of what regions would be needed to have something historically correct and interesting. If CA shows enough interest and ask me to make something more precise, I'll take time to place everything exactly, including cities, etc.
But only after they tell use what we can or cannot do (i.e. can we move existing border or just add new ones? How many regions would they agree to add).

This is not a fact that you could handle separately. Regions, rivers, lakes, towns and cities, pathfinding, trade route and so on are contained in different files, but all linked. It's only one problem.

[Steph]

Yes, that's why before proposing a definitive new map design, I want an official answer from CA explaining what they are ready to do, and what they need.

[MathiasOfAthens]

I dont think Lusted or Craig are lying when they say it is months of work to redesign the campaign map. We all imagine they have some fancy program or editor that allows them to change borders and add new regions, units, whatever to the campaign map in seconds. We can imagine this because it sounds like common sense to us that such a program would be more efficient plus they exist now for M2; geomod for instance. Its just an incredible shame the map is so hard to change. Perhaps we should petition CA to develop a better engine for the next TW something that is more responsive to map changes? I am sure your pitching this everyday Craig/Lusted. I am sure you guys have technical and legal reasons not to release a lot of sensitive information about how your map is made but perhaps some sort of built in editor could be developed for future TW games? Kinda like how Age of Empires had a map editor as well as many other games like Caesar I think. Both are of course radically different games and prob differ greatly but you get my point anyway?

[last_name_left]

Its just an incredible shame the map is so hard to change. Perhaps we should petition CA to develop a better engine for the next TW something that is more responsive to map changes?

y. 5 years down the road from "the most moddable TotalWar ever".............we get a confession that it really isn't. And CraigTW still tells us that's "because of consequence and not design" (!)

[if it wasn't designed, what on earth is it a consequence of? The Divine?!]

[wangrin]

Personnaly, I'm not interested in a DLC map for NTW, but I will pay for a better ETW map.
Particularly if you add new stuffs like "4 seasons", unit evolution (based on the same process that allow to transform monarchy units into republican ones but using a new and dedicated db table), distinct battleflag per unit (using db table to define what texture use) or, if impossible, a least 4 variants for each faction battleflag.

[Greve Af Göteborg]

y. 5 years down the road from "the most moddable TotalWar ever".............we get a confession that it really isn't. And CraigTW still tells us that's "because of consequence and not design" (!)

[if it wasn't designed, what on earth is it a consequence of? The Divine?!]

You can't plan everything.
Sure, it's easy to rabble up a lot of stuff that you want to add, but implementing those ideas don't always work.
This is common sense, there's nothing weird about it.
Just because they are the developers doesn't mean that they're perfect.

[MrClean]

Personnaly, I'm not interested in a DLC map for NTW, but I will pay for a better ETW map.
Particularly if you add new stuffs like "4 seasons", unit evolution (based on the same process that allow to transform monarchy units into republican ones but using a new and dedicated db table), distinct battleflag per unit (using db table to define what texture use) or, if impossible, a least 4 variants for each faction battleflag.

This is why I feel Pietro's approach is better for the community. I doubt many of us will ultimately agree on what CA provides us. Plus, it's a one and done. Seems to me to be a lose-lose situation for all involved.

Instead, give the modders more info on all the map based data and how it relates together. If there's going to be time invested in this on their part, at least let it be something that we can use beyond this one time placating of the fan base.

[PietroMicca]

Yes, that's why before proposing a definitive new map design, I want an official answer from CA explaining what they are ready to do, and what they need.

It's an infinite list

[wrcromartie]

Is it possible to draw on Google Earth 3D maps (that are already available) in order to generate accurate battle maps based on their real-world counterparts? I've always wondered why more companies aren't just using the real world as a basis for their maps, now that we have the whole world contour mapped in 3d. It seems like this would be a really cool way to do maps for a future title.

I'm speaking for terrain only here - obviously this would not work for cities.