Attila - Introducing the changes (OP updated October 22nd)

[GrnEyedDvl]

Well I had something big already written up, but I didnt get home in time to post it and a lot of it has already been posted. So I will take a bit different track on things.

First, I want to thank CA and Sega for having me out to San Francisco again. Its always a pleasure.

Now, to get down to business. As mentioned, some of this has already been posted but first I will just list some basic facts, then go into a bit more details I havent seen mentioned yet, and finally post some stuff you probably havent seen in pretty high resolution.

Campaign Map
1. 4 turns per year
2. Dynamic seasons - climate change on the map
3. Normal mapping - better resolution with less load
4. Family Tree - with records
5. Scorched Earth

Battle Map
1. Dynamic Fire
2. Barricades
3. New smoother waypoint navigation for units
4. Civilians in battle




Waypoints
Nobody else I have seen has really commented on this yet, but the system for this is quite improved. Instead of the shift button you just right click and drag the mouse. I tested the crap out of it to the point that I lost a battle because I was busy watching how the units moved. They followed the path very smoothly, no stopping and reforming. Even sending them across a river and through a small set of woods worked well.


Character Records
Actually not just character records, records on everything. A proper stats system for almost everything in your empire. Enough so that you could export a file, insert it in some application, and follow the progress of your empire across turns. I had a long talk with Janos on that, and now have some emails going as well. My idea is to build something for TWC that allows you to upload this in xml format and display it on your profile so that players can follow your progress and learn a few things from each other. I have no idea if we can actually make this happen, but it is possible and I will do everything I can to make it happen. I mentioned it to Squid 2 weeks ago and if we can figure it out and get ahold of some actual files we can probably build something for the site like this. I am not promising that this will happen, but that is the current goal.


Overall I was pretty impressed with the gameplay. More so than I was with Rome 2. And I really like the way the new zoom works especially in the Battle Map. I had a pile of stuff written up but as it looks I am the last one with actual hands on knowledge to get anything posted (real life got in the way today!) I would mostly be regurgitating what has already been said. With that I will post some new stuff and then leave it to you guys to ask questions. Some of these will be big images in really hig resolution.


Remember, everything here is pre-alpha.

My favorite screen shots so far:




Concept art of winter progression, this looks really good on the campaign map:




Some concept art:


Various models:



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Info put together by Dictator of the Roman Republic


After watching this http://www.twitch.tv/totalwarofficial/b/572003665 some more information was revealed.

-Saxons will be a playable faction (they were really highlighting on the fact that you'll play as minor factions who will start really small, so perhaps as playing as the saxons you'll have to find a new home)
-Small RPG elements for generals, in that you can customize his skill tree to suit them for specific areas such as improving their melee on horseback to improving their governorship etc.
-Different diseases will be present in-game such as smallpox, measles, TB and the early signs of the plague.
-Trading with other factions will increase the likelihood of having diseases brought over to your cities etc
-walls will be an option to build for minor settlements

Trees/vegetation can be set on fire

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

New graphical improves, lighting, textures both in-game and campaign, this will however not be more demanding than rome 2.

As stated in the video below, "if you can run rome 2, you'll be able to run Attila with no need to upgrade your graphics card"

(which is good news for everyone)

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Closer look at the in-game UI

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

1.
-Option to right-click on enemy units to view more detail about it, perhaps displaying its stats and buffs possibly.

2.
-Units being able to fight to the death? view the increased section and you'll see a skull and bones icon (can anyone see what that downwards arrow would signify next to the skull and bones??)
-New interface, displaying the ammo amount and unit amount at the top, new unit card icons, displaying unit level and type at the bottom.

3.
-nothing new except position,
-option to drag out the map to a bigger size
4.
-faction flags on the units are now removed, this time it seems each faction will have its own personal colour that will represent them, in this case its green and red.
-also on these new representations are including the unit amount, ammo amount and whether its in combat or not, via the crossed swords icon
-also visible is an icon to signify the general via a star icon

5.
on the top tool bar, we can see the timer, battle ratio, faction icon, a "100" icon (which could signify the timer count down for the central plaza), the central plaza icon, and some siege icon. which could indicate whether the city has been broken into or not, perhaps.



Things that aren't visible or displayed

-unit Cinematic view

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Family tree upgrades
- you will get the full history and ancestry of your family, instead of the normal 3 generation,
-political and dilemmas involved
-bastards / adoptions
-diplomatic marriage
-strong link of character skill and traits that can affect your family tree in both a good and bad way, which would be represented on the campaign and battle

Multiplayer
-same style as Rome II,
- no player progression like Shogun II

http://www.strategyinformer.com/pc/t...interview.html


Campaign map
-climate change will effect everyone, (barbarians moving south towards Rome to "shelter" from the cold etc, effect economic output and food production)

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...pire-or-end-it


Updated --

General
-New voice scripts/acting and music

Campaign
-You will need an army to colonize the desolated settlement, however by using the army you will actually lose some of the units that will go towards the revival of the settlement, the bigger the army the cheaper the colonization.

-there will be a priest agent, which will help with converting or spreading their nations culture and religion

-you will have more control over culture and religion of your faction, for example if you are playing as the WRE you will be able to revert to the ancient traditions and religious beliefs.

-the campaign is going to last 70 years, at the start Attila wont be born, however the hunnic hordes will be present from the beginning.

-the hunnic faction will not be scripted, but rather allowed the chance to become powerful, CA have added such implications that will direct them towards west. However they feel that they want it to be sandbox, and that history is re-created by you.

-smaller faction's attitude towards other factions are solely based on the faction leader, for example if you are friendly with the franks and their faction leader dies and the heir that comes into power hates you, then that faction will become far more aggressive towards you

-armies can still transport over sea but in doing so will inflict strong penalties such as sea sickness and other effects

-the map is bigger than Rome II, but focuses more towards the North East to include more the steppes

-diseases will only take effect on the campaign, not shown in-battle



Battle
-Civilians are not controllable, however it is a random generated choice as to whether they want to flee or fight. Civilians will be doing day to day stuff on the battlefield, (farming etc) and will then decide their action. If they flee they can either run into buildings and hide or (I assumed go off the map) if that building is on fire or about to be destroyed then the civilians will run out of them.

-sea warfare is more about boarding and missile attacks, rather than ramming (which is given due to the time period)

-fire is going to be a lot more apparent, in that ground, buildings, barricades, vegetation, trees can all set on fire


Multiplayer
-abandoning settlements/barricades/siege escalation/etc will be included in multiplayer,

http://gameovercast.co.uk/index.php?...es&episode=192

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Originally posted by Martijjn at the official forum.

Written version
Main campaign details
- All religions have their own buffs and benefits. 9 different religions in the game.
- Building Browser!
- Diseases can spread trough trade routes, armies and more and can cause diplomatic penalties.
- Constantinople will be a unique settlement and big. Very big.
- Minor settlements CAN have walls in ATTILA!
- There will be civil wars in ATTILA but they will work out different as Rome II's wars.
- More dillema’s, events and more.
- There will be cultural-specific music themes.
- There will be new army stances. Forced march now gives fatigue penalties when attacked.

Characters
- An assigned governor will grant an edict and bonusses and will be represented on the battle map when his city gets attacked.
- You can marry people from other factions to get them in your family tree.
- Different characters will bring different personalities in diplomacy. Because of this diplomatic relations will be more dynamic.

Agents
- More agent actions will unlock when you level up an agent!
- Results of agent actions will be displayed as 2D animations.

Attila
- ATTILA will always attack other nations. This cannot be avoided.
- Attila can be killed or wounded

Units and Factions
- Sassanids, Saxons playable, more playable factions will be revealed overtime.
- A lot more specialized ships. Boarding, ranged combat, ramming.
- There are male and female units in Total War ATTILA.
- Some Immortals and Cataphracts units will be in the game.

[IlluminatiRex]

Civilians on the battle maps? Does that mean a return of the City View?

[GrnEyedDvl]

Civilians on the battle maps? Does that mean a return of the City View?

Maybe! But what it really means is that if you attack a city in the first turn of a siege then there may be civilians running riot in the street getting in the way of the battle.

[IlluminatiRex]

Yeah, that's always something I thought would be neat in a Total War game. And the Waypoints sound like a great addition as well. Can't wait to see how this all plays out.

[GrnEyedDvl]

I really was impressed with how it played guys. The AI in the battle I fought absolutely kicked my ass the first time around. Mostly because I didn't organize anything and just clicked Start Battle and watched it play out. The enemy AI moved well, avoided barricades (they were unmanned anyways) and flanked me fairly well.

In the second battle Janos came over to watch me and showed me the waypoint feature. So I goofed around with that doing things that nobody would really do in a battle, just to see how the units moved. Again, I was impressed.

In the third battle I took it a bit more seriously. Putting spearmen on the barricades with crossbows or archer behind them to shoot over the barricade works well. At least until the fire caused by the onagers spreads and surrounds your men because you are too stupid to see it coming. I was doing fairly well until that happened, then things started to fall apart.

The last battle I won, but barely, and only because I was able to sneak some cavalry (using waypoints btw) across a river and around behind them and arrive fresh and unseen. I had spearmen blocking several key points in the city with barricades and managed to hit them in the ass with the cavalry while they were trying to break through.

[Taskeen]

Were you actually there playing a demo?

Things we need to know:

* Are armies still limited (not good)
* AND can we create Armies that are instead fielded by Captains (important)
* When a new General is assigned to an Army, do they teleport (I.E. Rome Total War 2) or must you send them by foot (with a small contigent if so desired) to reinforce your larger armies? (important strategic layer)
* Do people in your "Family" find their own wives/sire children on their own as with previous games (important, less clicking)
* Are there more traits that characters can earn on their own by you nudging/influencing them in a direction, rather than solely relying on a "skill selection" tree (important)
* Are torches present in siege battle (not good)
- addendum, battle map strategic layer by destroying all enemy siege equipment, the enemy must retreat and continue the siege to build more siege equipment instead of having an endless supply of gimmick torches (I.E. previous games such as MTW, RTW, BI, etc.)
* Can we "Give Regon" as a diplomatic option with Allied AI (important)
* Can we build roads for faster army movement between settlements or better trade (important)

I'm sure there is more that I am missing, basically if there are any returning features from Rome Total War, Barbarian Invasion, MTW, MTW2, etc.

[GrnEyedDvl]

Who renamed and stuck my thread? Sheesh I couldn't find it there for a minute.

Were you actually there playing a demo?

I was playing a pre-alpha version back on Sept 12th in San Francisco compiled two months ago.

Some of your questions didn't come up, and are probably being worked on and changed as we speak. Remember we are still a year or more out from release.

Things we need to know:

* Are armies still limited (not good)

Of course they are. They have to be. You cannot code anything to have "unlimited" assets. Nothing. Any first year programming student will tell you that. TWC software has limits, Windows has limits, Linux has limits, everything has limits. Now the limits may not be as big as you want, but they also have to account for playability on lower end machines.

* AND can we create Armies that are instead fielded by Captains (important)
* When a new General is assigned to an Army, do they teleport (I.E. Rome Total War 2) or must you send them by foot (with a small contigent if so desired) to reinforce your larger armies? (important strategic layer)
* Do people in your "Family" find their own wives/sire children on their own as with previous games (important, less clicking)

No idea on any of that, those are non issues for me so I didn't think to ask.

* Are there more traits that characters can earn on their own by you nudging/influencing them in a direction, rather than solely relying on a "skill selection" tree (important)

That entire system is being reworked as I posted in another thread, and is very complex and ties into all kinds of stuff.

* Are torches present in siege battle (not good)

I would assume so, and I actually like them.

- addendum, battle map strategic layer by destroying all enemy siege equipment, the enemy must retreat and continue the siege to build more siege equipment instead of having an endless supply of gimmick torches (I.E. previous games such as MTW, RTW, BI, etc.)
* Can we "Give Regon" as a diplomatic option with Allied AI (important)
* Can we build roads for faster army movement between settlements or better trade (important)

No idea on that stuff either. I spent most of my time talking about stuff I cant talk about with you guys and let the others that were there ask basic questions like this in their YouTube interviews. That may not be what you want to hear, so I apologize, but I have bigger goals than one single game release. Some of that I will talk about in the near future, some of it in the coming months.

[Huberto]

Remember we are still a year or more out from release.

Strange, I have the impression that this game is coming out in the first two months of 2015 based on the original Amazon.com release dates for the Attila tie-in book, i.e. end of January 2015. Your source?

[GrnEyedDvl]

Strange, I have the impression that this game is coming out in the first two months of 2015 based on the original Amazon.com release dates for the Attila tie-in book, i.e. end of January 2015. Your source?

My own personal impression based on conversations and history. Its in pre-alpha now, if it was anywhere close to being released in February it would probably be in beta by now. Or at least in alpha, not pre-alpha. And historically when I go to a press event for CA (several of them now) its about a year from release. They typically hold the Community Events (been to several of those as well) close to release, this was a press event.

I went to the press release for Shogun in NYC almost a year before I went to the community event for Shogun, and the community event was several months before release. I missed the press event for Rome II but the community event was held in April and then the game was released in September.


I want to be clear here, nobody from CA or Sega either one has mentioned anything resembling an official release date that I know of. I could be completely wrong.

[Huberto]

My own personal impression based on conversations and history. Its in pre-alpha now, if it was anywhere close to being released in February it would probably be in beta by now. Or at least in alpha, not pre-alpha. And historically when I go to a press event for CA (several of them now) its about a year from release.

OK but this is a stand alone expansion so it's presumably about six months or less from release. For example FotS announced in November of 2011, released in March of 2012, Napoleon Total War announced end of August 2009 released February 2010.

[GrnEyedDvl]

OK but this is a stand alone expansion

You consider it an expansion, CA does not. Like I said I could definitely be wrong, but I don't think so.

[Huberto]

You consider it an expansion, CA does not. Like I said I could definitely be wrong, but I don't think so.

This is not good news, because it implies a $60 game. Look at the campaign map for example. It's almost identical -- at least to my eyes.

[Sharpe]

This is not good news, because it implies a $60 game. Look at the campaign map for example. It's almost identical -- at least to my eyes.

Didn't every Total War game use Europe as its map except for Shogun....

[Huberto]

Didn't every Total War game use Europe as it's map except for Shogun....

Have you seen the twitch TV feed? Have a look and check out the campaign map, it's shockingly similar to TWR2.

[Sharpe]

Have you seen the twitch TV feed? Have a look and check out the campaign map, it's shockingly similar to TWR2.

Yeah man geographically Europe hasn't changed much in the last couple thousand.

If you look closely the Rome 1, both the Medievals, Empire and Napoleon also have very similar maps.

Rome's in Italy. Syracuse is in Sicily etc etc.

[GrnEyedDvl]

Rome's in Italy. Syracuse is in Sicily etc etc.

It is? No wonder I could never win that game...

[Huberto]

OK fellas. Have a look at ETW Europe v.s. NTW Europe and S2 Japan v.s. FotS Japan and tell me with a straight face the campaign map changes you've seen in Attila™ are different than TWR2 on a comparable scale.

And please, don't be disingenuous.

[Sharpe]

OK fellas. Have a look at ETW Europe v.s. NTW Europe

Different scale, cities added in NTW to adjust for size of map and removal of theaters.

and S2 Japan v.s. FotS Japan

What? About 5-10 new cities. EE adds that much.

and tell me with a straight face the campaign map changes you've seen in Attila™ are different than TWR2 on a comparable scale.

Chances are the cities of Europe wouldn't have changed very much through this period, only expanded on. It makes sense that the layout is similar as you are playing as/against the Roman Empire much like in Rome 2 you are playing as/against the Roman Empire.

What do you want dude? A new mountain range? The fabled city of Atlantis? The M4 Motorway?

Haha it's going to be similar because it's the same place with the same people.

[Huberto]

Different scale, cities added in NTW to adjust for size of map and removal of theaters.



What? About 5-10 new cities. EE adds that much.





Chances are the cities of Europe wouldn't have changed very much through this period, only expanded on. It makes sense that the layout is similar as you are playing as/against the Roman Empire much like in Rome 2 you are playing as/against the Roman Empire.

What do you want dude? A new mountain range? The fabled city of Atlantis? The M4 Motorway?

Haha it's going to be similar because it's the same place with the same people.

You aren't looking at the actual maps, you are fixated on the regions shown. Look at FotS again and tell me what it has in common with S2 besides the fact that it represents Japan? The mountains are different, the coastline, farms, roads, the trees, etc. Look at Attila again -- I see the same cliff heavy coastline, the same trees, even the same pointlessly winding roads. the mountains look identical. It's shockingly similar art work for a stand alone title, actually.

[Taskeen]

Really confusing GrnEye, how are none of those features important to you? Its why Rome Total War was loved, and its featured carried over to MTW2. Quite honestly I'm surprised you wouldn't ask those things.

I'm looking for mechanical historical accuracy from Rome Total War and Barbarian Invasion I, rather than gimmicky "game" things introduced in RTW2. Torches are also not representative of the better accuracy sieges provided in RTW, simulating sieges that took a lot longer, even in defense. One doesn't just go up to a gate and throw infinite torches, walled cities took years to destroy which is what RTW and MTW2 simulated best.