Will the cities actually LIVE in M2:TW?

[Sourge]

I have a question, in RTW I liked zooming in on a newly conquered city in the beginning, but soon that became boring because it not only all looked exactly the same, also the people were very boring. They walked/ran around but they didn't feel alive. No merchants in the merchant places, no armies training, the buildings were just blocks on the people's paths, all kinda boring. It almost felt like a uncompleted feature in RTW. So I wonder will this be improved in M2:TW? I'd love that...

[KaerMorhen]

I've no idea but really doubted it. To be honest with you I think there should be improvements in more important "areas" of M2TW performance than you mentioned, but you know maybe in mods...will see anyways.

[Lusted]

Well to do that they would have to do new ai for the city view, new animations, and other stuff and i'd rather they put in the effort somewhere else like the campaign/battle ai.

[Burebista]

I was unable too zoom for city life I think the option is not there.

[The White Knight]

Well to do that they would have to do new ai for the city view, new animations, and other stuff and i'd rather they put in the effort somewhere else like the campaign/battle ai.

I agree wholeheartedly, we should have a poll on how much people would like to see more emphasize on the peaceful side of towns (SimCity-esque). I would be genuinely surprised if the percentage of supporters would surpass 1%.

Priorities.

[Sourge]

new ai for the city view

Simple pathfinding from object to object is relatively easy to program, the object to move to would be randomly chosen based on the importance of the building.

new animations

Only merchants, the trainer in the barracks and siege engineer would require a new animation. Walking animation and basic battle animation will do for the rest. Just make sure the catapult hit around their target, which is only AI coding.

and other stuff

Make cities look different from eachother by placing buildings at different places, and more or less on certain places (based on terrain, near important objects, etc) than other cities should not conflict with any pathfinding. The AI will only have to know where the buildings are in the city, which isn't too hard to make and would, again, be a major improvement to the game in my oppinion.

and i'd rather they put in the effort somewhere else like the campaign/battle ai

Oh I absolutely must agree, AI goes first. But while they're at the AI they could aswell take a look at the AI in the city..? Not?

I was unable too zoom for city life I think the option is not there.

Double click on a city to view the city menu, click on 'show settlement details', a new menu will appear on the left (a very important one too), last step, click on 'view settlement on battlemap'. Enjoy.
Image to help: http://img90.imageshack.us/img90/3436/cityviewlx7.png

[Ceasar]

Double click on a city to view the city menu, click on 'show settlement details', a new menu will appear on the left (a very important one too), last step, click on 'view settlement on battlemap'. Enjoy.
Image to help: http://img90.imageshack.us/img90/3436/cityviewlx7.png

I think he means he couldn't do it while plaing MTW2...

[DougyM]

Simple pathfinding from object to object is relatively easy to program, the object to move to would be randomly chosen based on the importance of the building.


Only merchants, the trainer in the barracks and siege engineer would require a new animation. Walking animation and basic battle animation will do for the rest. Just make sure the catapult hit around their target, which is only AI coding.


Make cities look different from eachother by placing buildings at different places, and more or less on certain places (based on terrain, near important objects, etc) than other cities should not conflict with any pathfinding. The AI will only have to know where the buildings are in the city, which isn't too hard to make and would, again, be a major improvement to the game in my oppinion.


Oh I absolutely must agree, AI goes first. But while they're at the AI they could aswell take a look at the AI in the city..? Not?


Double click on a city to view the city menu, click on 'show settlement details', a new menu will appear on the left (a very important one too), last step, click on 'view settlement on battlemap'. Enjoy.
Image to help: http://img90.imageshack.us/img90/3436/cityviewlx7.png

A lot of your post is based on your opinions and not facts.

Coding the AI and adding animations isnt a 2 minute job for a almost useless feature such as the city view.

And the guy who said he couldnt, he played mtw2 at a press convention.... thats what he meant.

[Mikelus Trento]

When I play RTW there is great variety in the cities.....the appearance changes with each upgrade in palace, through 3 different architectural styles (Roman, barbarian, Eastern/desert). That's 15 different layouts right there.
From what I understand, MTW2 will already feature additional variety based on the terrain the city is located, and whether it is built out as a castle or city. There are already 2 current games which feature more "life", Civ City:Rome, and Caesars IV.

[Valerius Maximus]

would be nice, but as others have said it's very low on a list of priorities of what should be in the game

[the_mango55]

I think it would be cool for them to do if they had time, and perhaps a few more civillian skins.

However, what I would really like to see is civilians running around duruing segies, and you could choose to leave them be or kill them. If you killed them you would get more money, but have a lower population and more resentment, but if you purposely try not to harm them, you will get happiness bonuses.

[molonthegreat]

slaughtering civilians in the cities yeah that would add some realism and give the men morale bonuses

[The White Knight]

... not to mention it would satisfy our sadistic needs.

[LegionairosMatt]

Making new civillian skins would be way down the priorities list for M2, but i dont suppose it would be too hard to mod in some...

[Echolyn]

A question that I have for a long time and I think is quite important for city aesthetics;

Are city's actually different from each other, and do they really use the terrain (as CA has claimed)?

I hope to see city's which really are unique and are build around the terrain instead of the flat city's of Rome. Since the second overview movie which showed us the city's, I didn't see any city's which used the terrain only a small lake in eastern type city. then they showed us the different levels of the city's now here I saw something weird which seemed to suggest the city's actually flatten the terrain. There was a hill in the movie which was quite clear in the first levels of the city but when we came to the larger type city's one side of the hill was actually removed, it looked as if it was cut in half. This seems to suggest that the city's really aren't unique and they have a set terrain. I really hope i'm wrong with this because I really hope to see unique city's...

BureBista, You've played for hours with the a complete build of the game, do you know anything about this?

[Hansa]

My main consern about cities is that in at least one instance, I saw in Burebistas pictures that a province had a completely wrong town for capital. Has CA used the right cities, or the ones who are important as of today. In the instance Im talking about, CA chose the latter. They chose a town which is important today, but was barely a willage in Medieval times, as opposed to a city, which was very important in High/Late period, and the most important in the region in the early period aswell. Will York or Liverpool be the city in mid/north England?

[God-Emperor of Mankind]

My main consern about cities is that in at least one instance, I saw in Burebistas pictures that a province had a completely wrong town for capital.

Except you can pick your own capital in the game.
I think in RTW there were advantages to having your capital in certain places.

About the city view thing.
Personally I used this feature maybe 2 times in RTW.
It was a pointless feature IMO.

[Lord Tomyris]

Except you can pick your own capital in the game.
I think in RTW there were advantages to having your capital in certain places.

About the city view thing.
Personally I used this feature maybe 2 times in RTW.
It was a pointless feature IMO.

I think he means they were the wrong city to be represented for that particular province.

[God-Emperor of Mankind]

I think he means they were the wrong city to be represented for that particular province.

Ah I see now.

[Lusted]

York mostly likely as liverpool didn't really exist in the middle-ages, whereas York ws a very prominent town.