San Francisco Event Questions: ANSWERED !!

**Adreno** · July 25, 2013, 07:08 AM

ask how fleet transports will work in regards to everything that isnt infantry

**osros** · July 25, 2013, 09:59 AM

Originally Posted by Adreno

ask how fleet transports will work in regards to everything that isnt infantry

^ Good one.

**General George S. Patton** · July 25, 2013, 09:54 AM

Are there any plans to tone down the shear cliffs all over the campaign map?

**GrudgeNL** · July 25, 2013, 10:01 AM

Originally Posted by General George S. Patton

Are there any plans to tone down the shear cliffs all over the campaign map?

You do realize the cliffs are there for game play reasons (limiting the amount of places for beach landings)?

**General George S. Patton** · July 25, 2013, 10:06 AM

Originally Posted by GrudgeNL

You do realize the cliffs are there for game play reasons (limiting the amount of places for beach landings)?

Yes, but why?, and its very excessive.

**GrudgeNL** · July 25, 2013, 10:08 AM

Originally Posted by General George S. Patton

Yes, but why?, and its very excessive.

Well, although I agree it's kind of excessive, there surely must be a very good reason for it. For instance, if the entire coast was a beach, in theory a lot of factions could just spam beach landings everywhere. Right now, it's a little bit more controlled, level flow is probably the best term. If multiple factions were to attack the player, from different 'sea' directions, atleast the player has a very small advantage and might be able to prepare.

**Raikou** · July 25, 2013, 10:16 AM

Originally Posted by GrudgeNL

Well, although I agree it's kind of excessive, there surely must be a very good reason for it. For instance, if the entire coast was a beach, in theory a lot of factions could just spam beach landings everywhere. Right now, it's a little bit more controlled, level flow is probably the best term. If multiple factions were to attack the player, from different 'sea' directions, atleast the player has a very small advantage and might be able to prepare.

Also the battles that play out would be no less than EPIC !!!!

10,000 Romans hold the beach head against 25,000 Macedonians lannding. Can you say troy !?!?!

**Drewbs** · July 25, 2013, 01:19 PM

Will they make modding easier? Maybe offer a small modding tool pack?

**Raikou** · July 26, 2013, 02:10 AM

Finally an update has been made and questions still streaming in as I type this. I'd like to CONFIRM THERE WILL BE A VISUAL & STATISTICAL difference with African and Indian elephants !!! HURRAYYY !!!!

Hey everyone, your friendly neighbor ShinoGH here once again.

And boy oh boy do I have some stuff for you. Just got back from San Francisco and have just justified an hour drive with two hours of pure strategic bliss. Considering the sheer amount of stuff that I have to format and prepare in order to show you what went down, I'm going to have to edit this post several times.

I even have pictures.

They aren't perfect pictures though. The lighting at the event wasn't exactly meant for great photography and I'm not that great of a photographer.

Stay tuned for info on the event and some of the answers that I was able to obtain from Craig and Al.

Oh. And just for your viewing pleasure,I'll have you look at some of the "shoddy"¹ pictures that I was able to get. You'll have to wait a bit though as I have to create some photo account so that I can post pictures with a larger file size.

Pictures can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/99461402@N08/

Now then, let's get started with some Q & A. Unfortunately, Craig and Al weren't able to answer all of the questions that you, my fellow forum-ites, were able to come up with. Time is a fickle mistress and I was not able to tame her. Fortunately, I am allowed to send an email to Al later on in order to have them answered in full. I'll have that email up and ready when it becomes available.

In the meantime...

Questions and Answers

1. Food System: Total War Rome 2 will have a food system that contains two parts. The first part will utilize "food" as it has usually been used in previous Total War games. Food will affect the income that a city will have. The second part of the food system will be similar to Total War Shogun 2. Players will have to carefully plan the development of cities lest they fall trap to a shortage of food and causing a drop in population happiness due to starvation.

2. Ruling Factions: Recently, we have learned that Rome and Carthage have three ruling families that players can choose from. Each family will have common traits that it shares with the other two families while having traits unique to itself. Al confirmed that only Rome and Carthage will have different ruling families. Other factions will utilize a single "family" or "tribe" to rule the faction. They will have options that are not available to Rome or Carthage. One of the possible diplomatic options that Al mentioned was that barbarian tribes will have the ability to form confederations with other barbaric tribes.

3. Elephants: There will be a visual differentiation between elephants from India and elephants from Africa. Stats-wise, I am still waiting on further clarification from Al whether the two units are similar or different.

4. Naval Regions in Rome 2: I believe mmurray821 asked this question at the Q&A. From what I recall, in order to "control" a sea region, factions must have a navy present. With a navy present, any hostile or un-allied navies will be forced to engage the controlling naval force before being allowed to land an army. (Correct me if I am wrong mmurray821; I was busy eating the pizza balls)

5. Multiplayer: Eh. This one requires quite a bit of explanation. I'm just going to put a placeholder here and fill it up after I try to format a paragraph for it.

6. Ranged Units: Ranged units such as javelin throwers must be stationary in order to throw. Confirmed by Al and other attendees playing demo.

7. Battles Speeches: This one came as a little bit of a shocker to me. If I heard correctly, there will be no pre-battle speeches for standard battles on the campaign map. The only battles speeches as of right now are those included in historical battles. Might be for the best though. I only listened to the battle speeches a few times before I just skipped over them to start deployment. Better usage of funds to dedicate elsewhere rather than battle speeches.

8. Slavery: There will indeed be a "slavery" mechanic in game. Al and Craig both pointed out that CA did not completely flesh out the mechanic because slavery is a rather controversial topic/ As of typing, players will be allowed to: capture and enslave enemy units on the battlefield. Slaves will be treated as a resource on the campaign map. Will send an email in order to further clarify this topic.

9. Campaign City Appearance on a Siege Map: Besides famous cities such as Rome, Carthage, Alexandria and what have you, other cities will not be specifically rendered on the battlefield. There will be a form of increasing points to capture similar to Shogun 2's castles. Higher tier cities will be larger and have more defensive positions in comparison to lower tier cities, similar to Shogun 2's building system.

10. Fantasy Units: Units such as the "Tessakonteres" will not be present in Rome 2.

11... More incoming. Still gathering thoughts. Should have grabbed another Red Bull before I left.

MORE INFO COMING IN STAY TUNED !!!

**Raikou** · July 26, 2013, 02:26 AM

I would also like to point out that the battle of the nile videos clearly had indian elephants in them but with African in their title name so I think it's pretty safe to say that Battle of the Nile video with all it's flaws wasn't even near finished just like many suspected so

I think it's pretty safe to assume that all these problems we've seen with recent videos of the campaign are or already have been more than likely polished fixed etc etc so especially with the general portraits I suspect we will see ENTIRELY different images of them in the final product for sure.

**Marcus Claudius Marcellus** · July 26, 2013, 03:12 AM

No pre-battle speeches? Man, that's terrible, really disappointed by that.

I was only talking to my housemate yesterday about how in-depth they could be, the speeches in the original Rome were amazing, I took it for granted that they would be included.

**Raikou** · July 26, 2013, 03:18 AM

Originally Posted by Marcus Claudius Marcellus

No pre-battle speeches?

Man, that's terrible, really disappointed by that, I was only talking to my housemate yesterday about how in-depth they could be...

They will be in for historical battles. All in all it sucks yes and will take away another layer of nostalgia for me and I'm sure many others

Still waiting on my #1 question about musical instruments being used in armies in the game *fingers crossed* PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE !!!

**Murfmurf** · July 26, 2013, 03:25 AM

Nice work, bud! +rep

**Raikou** · July 26, 2013, 03:43 AM

Originally Posted by Murfmurf

Nice work, bud! +rep

Thanks man! All the thanks will be diverted to ShinoGH over on the official forums

**geala** · July 26, 2013, 04:02 AM

I don't care about the battle speeches, always skipped them. I don't like that javelins cannot be thrown while running. It adds a lot of speed and therefore energy to the javelin irl. But ok, I can live with it. I hope African elephants will be weaker than Indian. The Africans were smaller and not able to stand toe to toe to its bigger relatives.

**Raikou** · July 26, 2013, 04:23 AM

Originally Posted by geala

I don't care about the battle speeches, always skipped them. I don't like that javelins cannot be thrown while running. It adds a lot of speed and therefore energy to the javelin irl. But ok, I can live with it. I hope African elephants will be weaker than Indian. The Africans were smaller and not able to stand toe to toe to its bigger relatives.

Oh I'm sure they will statistically be represented as such otherwise why would they go through the trouble of implementing them VISUALLY ya know? my only question is how varied will each species be represnted.

Will there be the small North African Elephants ? Will we see the Syrian elephants for the Indian ones? or will they simply just be African Forest Elephants & Asian Elephants? questions questions questions