Unit cards?

[mr mojo risin]

Did i see proper good looking unit cards in this {atw}?...or was it just a dream?
ah....how much better are those cards at 3:01 ish ........https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIk3GJEupi4

[Gromovnik]

I really hope so. R2 unit cards were the second worst thing about that game.

[Riekopo]

They are rendered now like in previous games instead of being stylized art. Another improvement they need is for all of a unit's statuses to be shown at once on different parts of the card instead of only one status showing at flashing intervals.

[craziii]

they look really good. similar to bullgod style. maybe he got secretly hired to do it

[Totalwarzone]

Attila unit cards were awesome! It is very easy to find your units compared to Rome II.

[Aenima]

I liken it more to Skidvar's unit cards, but then I guess I'm biased as I simply prefer his

Either way it's a definite step up from R2, so glad they're going for better cards this time.

[Greve Af Göteborg]

I like them, reminds me of medieval 2 & rome.

[Quintillius]

Don't forget the building cards. Last time we saw these beautiful cards was in Medieval II. Next game building cards were only drawings. I really hate this.
Now bring back the following things and Total War is going to become my most favorite game again:

- Short movies for agents
- More building options for every town (walls & towers included)
- Option to control every town separately: tax, population, growth, happiness
- Remove any arcade feature, bring back management
- Remove white trails of arrows/javelins

Did you notice all above things are implemented in Medieval II?
Anyway I really like the city scenes in Rome II and this game (again a feature removed in games after M-II).

"Creative Assembly, give me back all features!"

[Gromovnik]

And walls for every city.

[Causeless]

they look really good. similar to bullgod style. maybe he got secretly hired to do it

Highly, highly, doubt that. It's nothing like Bullgod's style... he used pixel art. These are just straight renders in the same style of Rome 1.

[caratacus]

Pleased that the unit cards are now showing the units instead of being stylised as they were in RTW2. I understand why they did it for RTW2. But the concept really didn't match up to the overall historical feel and realism of the campaign whilst detracting significantly from the playability of battles.

Attila does seems to be a definite improvement in the UI. But CA needs to create more atmosphere of the age than RTW2 through the type of videos that were in the first Shogun along with some good quality music.

[Butan]

For me unit cards are always better when they "look like" what they are in-game.

Big fan of purely rendered units. As long as they manage to make every similar units have different poses or such so that we can differentiate them.

[Sol Invictus]

For me unit cards are always better when they "look like" what they are in-game.

Big fan of purely rendered units. As long as they manage to make every similar units have different poses or such so that we can differentiate them.

I feel the same way. The first thing that slapped me up side the head in R2 was the horrid Unit Cards. That along with the horrible overall UI makes me wonder what in hell CA was thinking. Did not someone in a meeting raise their voice and question these decisions? Thank God they are mending their ways but sadly it is all too late for R2. What a horrible waste of a year and a half and a potentially groundbreaking game. It seems it is always one step forward and two steps back with these guys.

[Aenima]

I feel the same way. The first thing that slapped me up side the head in R2 was the horrid Unit Cards. That along with the horrible overall UI makes me wonder what in hell CA was thinking. Did not someone in a meeting raise their voice and question these decisions? Thank God they are mending their ways but sadly it is all too late for R2. What a horrible waste of a year and a half and a potentially groundbreaking game. It seems it is always one step forward and two steps back with these guys.

As I've stated elsewhere, my opinion is that CA/Sega were trying to make TW less of a niche franchise (known to strategy-game communities for the most part) and make it more of a commercially "mainstream" game and grab people's attention that might not be strategy gamers. Hence my belief as to why the UI was "stream-lined" (made to look modern, not feel archaic) while unit and buildings cards were given that Greek pottery look ("ooh wow, much historical) whilst also catering to them with the artillery bombardments that are featured in-game but were also plastered over screenshots, posters, and featured in videos ("oooh wow, such Battlefield!")

If it's not for that reason - something I feel is an understandable business move and an attempt to widen their base of potential customers - then whoever came up with these designs and ideas, and whoever approved it, really slipped up in my opinion since, as you said, they're pretty hideous/immersion breaking.

[Sharpe]

The unit cards are a huge step backwards.

[mr mojo risin]

The unit cards are a huge step backwards.

explain why please?

[Sharpe]

explain why please?

Rendered unit cards are just do damn generic. Shogun 2 has the best unit cards by a mile - they complement the UI and general art style of the game very well. Rome 2's were good but the UI was lacklustre.

A 3D model is just a small version of a unit you can see on the map. But with an artistic, stylized card you can reflect the individuality of each culture - done properly it would be far better. Not to mention you can show off the talent of the artists.

Something like this would be perfect:

[Cope]

Rendered unit cards are just do damn generic. Shogun 2 has the best unit cards by a mile - they complement the UI and general art style of the game very well. Rome 2's were good but the UI was lacklustre.

A 3D model is just a small version of a unit you can see on the map. But with an artistic, stylized card you can reflect the individuality of each culture - done properly it would be far better. Not to mention you can show off the talent of the artists.

Something like this would be perfect:

Personally I didn't mind the unit cards in Rome II, but they were all a bit samey for many people. That's the problem with art cards, you have to make them work across the board. It was fine for Shogun because it was all the same culture, but in Rome II having "Greek" style art for Barbarian factions just seemed quite weird.

[Sharpe]

Personally I didn't mind the unit cards in Rome II, but they were all a bit samey for many people. That's the problem with art cards, you have to make them work across the board. It was fine for Shogun because it was all the same culture, but in Rome II having "Greek" style art for Barbarian factions just seemed quite weird.

Agreed. But having unique cultural cards would elevate the game that much further.

But obviously that comes with a greater workload.

[Cope]

Agreed. But having unique cultural cards would elevate the game that much further.

But obviously that comes with a greater workload.

It's an awful lot of work if you ask me, and unfortunately it's not really practical from a game sense either. This is for a number of reasons:

1. People playing the game need to be able to recognize units at a glance based on their cards. Having multiple cultural designs means that people have to re-learn card designs based on culture which is just creates unnecessary ambiguity.
2. It is inevitable that armies will have units from more than one culture in them. (mercenaries, levied client state units, auxiliaries etc) which means that cards would clash. For instance you'd end up with half an army in a "Roman" style, and the another half in a "Barbarian" style. This creates unnecessary clutter in the UI and makes it difficult for your eyes to instantly distinguish between types. The only way of getting around this is to have multiple cards for the same unit(s) depending on whose army they are in, but this creates the problem of database clutter because you'd pretty much have to copy units over and over. You'd also have to add in extra layers of code so the game knew which card to select.For example units like the "eastern archers" are available for a number of factions who are not necessarily in the same culture group so you'd either have to make them new cards depending on their culture group or simply make a new unit altogether to make it work.

This is why CA always use a blanket style for all of their cards. Having different art designs for each culture (or even faction) just causes more problems than it solves. The reason that renders have traditionally been chosen is because they are stylistically neutral whilst still being easily distinguishable. This is kind of what you want for card designs.

Ultimately card designs are very subjective. I do not like Bullgod's design personally because it looks too cartoon like for my tastes, but I know hundreds of people really really like them. The same goes for Rome II's vanilla cards. Again, using renders somewhat alleviates this problem because they are so neutral so its more difficult to dislike them. At the end of the day cards are meant to be functional over anything else. Rome II's cards were seen as a failure by many because people didn't think that different units were easily identifiable. You know, units like principes and hastati look pretty much identical, as do the majority of cavalry units (its very hard to tell a royal cataphract from a regular one for example).

My only suggestion about cards would be to have the general unit having the picture of the general himself (as was the case in Medieval and Rome I). This is only from a character development perspective however.