Finally... True Line of Sight! Been wanting this in TW for over a decade :D

[Shigawire]

From PCGamer UK
...a subtle but major change to the Total War formula: every unit now has dynamic, terrain-based line of sight, and no enemy unit is visible by default. No more steering your men towards a general magically marked out by a star on the battlefield.
"Each individual man is actually looking around him," Ferguson explains. "He can only see what he can see. As a result of that you get a much more claustrophobic effect when you're in a forest situation - and much less time to react.

[SODK]

This is probably one of the biggest game change that has been revealed and I just love it! I've wanted this for so long! Now you will hopefully be able to lure the enemy with cavalry hidden from sight behind a hill and charge them from the rear when they least expect it! And just think of the possibilities of doing a real barbarian charge down a hill after luring the enemy to close! Suddenly hundreds and hundreds of screaming barabarians appear at the top of the hill after preparing for an ambush!

[r3dshift]

Excellent news and a most welcome change indeed.

[ngr]

sounds great!

[Ritterlichvon86]

This is indeed awesome, I have waited for this such a long time. It will make light units and ambushers just so more important and will enable us to wage partisan warfare to a limited degree. Before you'd just see all the enemy units if they moved or marched your army into them because you'd know where in their spawn area they could hide.

It means we can harass enemies... sneak into the flanks, throw javelins, run off. It will give us an even better meta game.

[gaunty14]

Sweeet!!

edit: Just fleshing out to post to avoid any single word issues . I think it sums up most reactions though.

[The Glorious Moldovan]

If this will have to do with the moral formula than i say its a no-no.
Imagine if the men are scarred while waiting to be attacked in a misty forest.

That would mean my men have no chance,and would make ambushes OP

[Nicolaos]

yeah imagine taking your cavalry up on a hill and on the other side suddenly some phalanx units show up

[Ritterlichvon86]

If this will have to do with the moral formula than i say its a no-no.
Imagine if the men are scarred while waiting to be attacked in a misty forest.

That would mean my men have no chance,and would make ambushes OP

Why should they be scared? Why wait to be attacked? They are legionaries. Don't judge others by your standards!

[matray]

I might actually bother with multiplayer again now.

[Hartius]

WOW that's a huge change! It will totaly change de dynamics of battles, and i think i'll love it!

[Maiden_Ante]

Interesting, though I'm kind of worried this will mean more of the annoying "I'm walking through forest so you can't see me lol"-dilemma that I had with Shogun II... the consequence being that archers become somewhat useless as soon as a couple of trees are nearby.

[Destraex]

I call BS sorry.
It may be true LOS but it really does not matter as long as the player can control all units and see what all units see for a collective BORG sight.
What we need is a norbsoft style messenger system to make LOS worth it. Meaning your men cannot move until they are given orders from the general within reason but especially where LOS limits are concerned.

[♘Top Hat Zebra]

I see this playing havoc with the AI. For one thing, I highly doubt that the AI will be able to handle it. No clever ambushes from the AI, and it will probably already know where all of your men are.

Imagine this: You fight a long, tough battle, three entire stacks defeated by your tactical skills. You're waiting for your heroic victory screen, and... Waiting... And waiting...

Turns out there is another enemy unit left. Somewhere. Hidden in the vast Germanic forest. Stuck on the terrain somewhere. Now you have to search the entire map for it.


Nope, I am not at all looking forward to this. I hope it is optional, but, knowing TW's lack of obvious options in the past, my best hope is that it can be modded out.

Besides, what counts as "Line of sight"? If your men are in a forest, and the enemy is in the same group of trees, can you see them?

How is this realistic? Who uses an entire group of 200 legionaries to scout a group of trees? Why should I need to dedicate an entire unit to just sit on top of a hill so I can see where to move my men? Three men could do that!


I really hope this is an option, like the "Battle Realism" mode in Shogun 2. Total War left realism in this aspect behind when it let you float around in the sky and communicate instantly with all of your units like an angry, biased war god. The AI is going to be as predictable as always, it won't be luring you into clever traps, or hiding units behind hills to surprise you. All this is going to do is make it less cinematic for me.

It might be better in multiplayer, but it will only cause me problems in single player.

[Shigawire]

It may be true LOS? Either it is true LOS, or it isn't. "Calling BS" is an invalid and irrelevant argument. Your main gripe with adding true LOS is that it's "not true enough." You want the LOS to also affect how orders are carried through chain of command. But CA has already stated that they aren't going to do this.

Being able to use topography to hide units behind, is a big enough change for me that I have cared a lot about.

[Fanest]

So will this means end of Debug camera mode we used in stw2 for MP as well? Because there this camera mode will be tested to the fullest imo

[Glatisant]

I see this playing havoc with the AI. For one thing, I highly doubt that the AI will be able to handle it. No clever ambushes from the AI, and it will probably already know where all of your men are.

Imagine this: You fight a long, tough battle, three entire stacks defeated by your tactical skills. You're waiting for your heroic victory screen, and... Waiting... And waiting...

Turns out there is another enemy unit left. Somewhere. Hidden in the vast Germanic forest. Stuck on the terrain somewhere. Now you have to search the entire map for it.


Nope, I am not at all looking forward to this. I hope it is optional, but, knowing TW's lack of obvious options in the past, my best hope is that it can be modded out.

Besides, what counts as "Line of sight"? If your men are in a forest, and the enemy is in the same group of trees, can you see them?

How is this realistic? Who uses an entire group of 200 legionaries to scout a group of trees? Why should I need to dedicate an entire unit to just sit on top of a hill so I can see where to move my men? Three men could do that!


I really hope this is an option, like the "Battle Realism" mode in Shogun 2. Total War left realism in this aspect behind when it let you float around in the sky and communicate instantly with all of your units like an angry, biased war god. The AI is going to be as predictable as always, it won't be luring you into clever traps, or hiding units behind hills to surprise you. All this is going to do is make it less cinematic for me.

It might be better in multiplayer, but it will only cause me problems in single player.

I hope that in addition to the 20 units you will have the option to have 2-5 extra scouting units so you can explore and discover the enemies faster. The scouting unit being Fast light cavelry (max 5 per unit) who are useless in battle. Also the AI must not know your location and has to scout as wel. You can leave a part of your army exposed in order to get discovered by the enemy scout and lure them into your ambush.

[Ritterlichvon86]

...

Battles will be won by holding landmarks, e.g. the carriage or fort in the enemy spawn zone. This means your entire fears collapse like a house of cards when the dog enters the room. Which is a good thing, as you may agree ;-)

I hope that in addition to the 20 units you will have the option to have 2-5 extra scouting units...

Armies consist of up to 40 unit cards.

[The Glorious Moldovan]

Why should they be scared? Why wait to be attacked? They are legionaries. Don't judge others by your standards!

>They're legionaries

You say as if they're some sort of ubermesch

Soldiers get scarred.
Imagine you get an order to march to another city,there was no sight of enemies for weeks.
As you march the cavalry sights some shields and axes in the forest,you are ordered to prepare for an attack,you hear warcries of thousands while seeing only a couple of men in that mist.All of a sudden you realise you're legion is surounded and outnumberd.

How would you feel?

Unless this doesnt affect the morale of the men,im totally fine with it

[♘Top Hat Zebra]

Battles will be won by holding landmarks, e.g. the carriage or fort in the enemy spawn zone. This means your entire fears collapse like a house of cards when the dog enters the room. Which is a good thing, as you may agree ;-)



Armies consist of up to 40 unit cards.

For the first thing, are you serious? The only thing I've heard like that is for sieges. If what you say is true, then I am really no longer looking forward to Rome 2. And that doesn't really solve any of the arguments I have against the LOS system they are referring to. You would still need to waste an entire unit on scouting, the AI would still probably not handle it correctly, etc.

As for the 40 unit cards thing, as far as I know, that only pertains to reinforcements. Unless we've gotten some new information recently?