Soho Event - Questions answered!

[TotalWarker]

***SEE POST 2 FOR FULL ANSWERS***

Hi all,

Being one of the lucky few who lives near enough to this prestigious event, and got his name on the 'exclusive' guest list, I'll be popping my head into what will no doubt be a marvelous mix of alcohol and gaming.

As such I thought it might be an idea to gather a few thoughts of those who sadly cant attend and put together a couple of questions which I will try to get at least an answer for some of. I will also aim to put some kind of opinion/assessment of what I have seen (and can remember) on Thursday morning.

Please be aware of the following facts:

• I will have had a beer
• The chances of my cornering a CA employee for anything more than a minute or two is slim
• My memory is not what it was
• I am not technical (so will not be able to remember technical answers about threading or binary etc)
• I will only ask questions which are of some interest to me (so no deep historical accuracy, why haven't you done x, rude qs, stuff that's been answered etc)

So with that in mind, I'll make a list below based on the replies on this thread, then hopefully edit the second post with a few answers and some of my comments on what I've seen. I'll start with 1 I'm interested about, and one that a nameless forum member () put to me already.

1. How will editing the unit numbers in the preference? file affect naval transports? ie will a unit always occupy 2, or will a transport always hold 80?
2. Battlefield detail - we know that nearby landmarks will appear in the background, but what about regional differences in terrain? For example, will things like small coracle boats be present in places like the British isles?
3. Buildings on battlemap from campaign map? Garrison buildings?
4. Which cities are unique on the battlemap (like Carthage)
5. Is the food system different to Shogun 2? If so in what way?
6. Any chance of a peek at barbarian ships and iceni/averni units?
7. Do traditions vary by faction or culture?
8. Are Watchtowers back?
9. Can you turn prisoners into units via any method?
10. How do Non aggression pacts and defensive alliances work?
11. Family tree system? Choose Heir?
12. With difficulty levels - what are the buff amounts and to whom
13. Are there 1 v 1 kill animations for Elephants?

Fire away people...

[TotalWarker]

Right then all, a quick write up on my thoughts from last night. The bar was relatively small with an upstairs and downstairs. Upstairs we had the prologue, downstairs was the battle of the Nile (on essentially the latest engine so included most of the speed/trail tweaks etc). 3 PCs playing each.

Before I go on I must thank CA and everyone involved for setting this all up, being so welcoming and of course the free bar (from which I had just 2 becks due to being on painkillers). Briefly met Will on the way in but by that point I think everyone had tracked him down and he was probably a bit weary of people grabbing him haha. I cracked a pretty poor gag about him not wearing full Roman gear too which probably made him think 'move this guy on fast' . In all seriousness though, the CA peeps who I did meet were sound, and clearly love and have pride for this game.

Now bear in mind that I got there an hour after it all started (I finish work in west London at 6) so by the time I got there the prologue area was getting busy and I was desperate to get my hands on something so popped downstairs to the less popular Nile area. By the time I was done down there and peeked upstairs again there was absolutely no chance of getting a go on the prologue as it seemed that people were playing through large chunks of the campaign. I watched for a bit and then bailed due to a combination of heat and wanting to get a couple of notes down before my mind wandered.

Managed to get chatting to a CA guy who had been extensively testing the campaign, who was kind enough to answer as well as he could as I scrolled through a pre-prepped list of questions. He said that they are in a whirlwind of testing and tweaking right now, so little changes are likely to continue to be made. I stress little.

I think it would be best if I go through these answers first and then give a little summary of my thoughts on what I saw/played.

Excuse me if this is a little 'rambly' as I'm writing it on packed tubes traveling into work to be copy pasted later!

I'll be updating this as I go along


1 - How will editing the unit numbers in the preference? file affect naval transports? ie will a unit always occupy 2, or will a transport always hold 80?

Being a tester and not knowing about the code side, he couldn't answer this question.

2 - Battlefield detail - we know that nearby landmarks will appear in the background, but what about regional differences in terrain?

Tiles for battlefields are 4km2. They also then draw on a much wider scale of information from nearby tiles. This means that as the tiles for the bf are smaller, there is a HUGE number of different bf (not just the small '1 per region' that some have been estimating). Wide variation of landscape types. Very detailed on there too (lots of little things). No specifics on conacles Brig unfortunately, but regional details can be expected.

3 - Buildings on battlemap from campaign map? Garrison buildings?

Standard low level building will not be represented on a battle siege map, but higher tier/top tier will be. Garrisoning buildings will not be in as far as he was aware, mainly due to the fact that it is not a 'ranged' based game like empire. Siege maps will of course be based on city size, so as you build up the battle map will change for cities according to their growth (probably expected).

4 - Which cities are unique on the battlemap (like Carthage)

The 5 revealed yesterday will be the only unique cities.

5 - Is the food system different to Shogun 2? If so in what way?

This is interesting (new to me). Much like S2 food will dictate happiness and growth. Additionally, if you are in negative global food, replenishment will stop completely. If individual provinces have negative food, friendly armies stationed there will suffer attrition. A more in depth system.

6 - Any chance of a peek at barbarian ships and iceni/averni units?

Couldn't answer this

7 - Do traditions vary by faction or culture?

Some traditions are general (across all factions) and some are faction specific (such as buffing particular types of units). Very varied system. Traditions stick but general and units are lost along with all of their traits, trees and experience. Traditions are weak to start, but can be powerful at top level so worth planning from the start.

Army limits - As we know based on 'fame', similar system to S2. The limit levels are 3, 6, 9, 12 and 15 for the biggest of empires.

8 - Are Watchtowers back?

No. Fortified armies work as a temp watchtower however, with increased line of sight as well as abilities such as spikes, caltrops, balls etc

9 - Can you turn prisoners into units via any method?

No. Prisoners are similar to Med 2. Kill, release, enslave. Decisions affect global and enemy faction reputation. Slaves dont increase build speed but decrease cost. Threat of slave rebellion if you have too many.

10 - How do Non aggression pacts and defensive alliances work?

Didn't ask, sorry.

11 - Family trees

No family tree as such as the politics system is overhauled from s2 but house families are present. Have a pool of generals. Can adopt. Important for civil war. Small fam can mean devastation.

12 - With difficulty levels - what are the buff amounts and to whom

Still balancing but similar to s2 (ie buff switches from player to AI between Normal and Hard). AI behaviour diff per lvl, and this is something to do with exceptions in the code (but I didn't understand this bit)? Legendary - more aimed at limiting you than buffing them. Difficulty lvls mean they can build more per turn but not faster. Cheaper, and units have more moral but no insta build.

13 - Are there 1 v 1 kill animations for Elephants?

Not that I saw during the nile battle, and I did zoom in A LOT. What I would say is that there were some really great animations for fighting between cav vs inf, and inf vs inf. It does look awesome.


Some more notes

Buildings are not immediate build (think I saw this suggested somewhere on here) and will take multiple turns to complete as before. The only 'insta' build is the city expansion, which is based on population growth. This earns you points which can be used to expand once there. So really this isn't instantaneous, just the graphical representation is.

Agents - vary by culture, similar trees to s2 in style but the feel is different (ie Rome spy and iceni spy have varying trees in some aspects)

City overhaul when captured. You can rip down and rebuild your style.

Gameplay thoughts

Unit speed - For me this was fine, noticably slower than both S2 and the E3 footage. Probably not slow enough for some but its certainly a good middle ground

Boat speed - Fast, too fast for me to be honest. Probably modable with ease but they felt too quick in the water, especially when compared to the land units nearby. Possibly to be tweaked before release?

Trails - for me I feel they are about right, on the heavy side of decent. Know many on here wont like them, but if they can be taken out they will be by modders. I quite like a little trail to see where my stuff is shooting.

Balls - amusing to dodge, cant see them being overly effective against the AI unless you line them all up together and cover a large area. Good to watch though

General Graphics - I thought they were great, but the dude I was sitting next to was saying how he wasnt that impressed with the machine haha. Perhaps I have lower standards than most, or dont care quite so much about graphical specifics, but for the average gamer these should be fine.

Unit detail - spectacular and varied. Seriously, huge step up from S2. Beautiful.

Responsiveness - Thought the units were really responsive compared to S2, they pulled out of combat (most of the time on first instruction) and maneuvered well. This was particularly noticable with cav, who I have found to be quite 'sticky' in the past..

Boat firing - you can fire the projectiles from boats (and I assume siege weapons) when in 1st person view (insert). Great fun and probably useful if you wanted to take out specific areas when defending. Not sniper accurate either so they do fly about a bit but when you get a hit it's v satisfying!

Fighting length - good. Possibly a little quick still, something i'll look to get a mod for. Generally though, better than S2 and enough time to apply tactics when holing up units in combat.

Unit size - for me, they could be bigger. Understand the limitations but I'd look to bring these up to probably 1.5 times the size via mods, as long as it doesn't screw with transports.

Animations - great . Seriously. Zoom in and you can get lost in the chaos. Love it, you can tell they have worked on this aspect greatly.

General feel - Smooth for the most part. Not dissimilar to s2 (bar speed etc) but more responsive. Certainly a great deal of fun, I can assure you.

Deathofjams - Some stray observations:

- When you recruit a general, a 'choose bodyguard' screen pops up. The only options available in the prologue were the standard cavalry or a ship, which in itself is quite cool, but, even more intriguingly,the design of the UI seemed to imply there might be more options for bodyguard units available.
- In the prologue generals were able to recruit three units per turn, although apparently this depends on the quality of the troops you're recruiting.
- The variety and detail of the units is seriously impressive; even the mob unit had a huge amount of faces and tunics.
- Attacking cities directly from the sea is awesome.
- Sometimes when units disembark from ships, they fall over.
- Battle maps are absolutely massive.
- Still a few bugs; at one point my legions got stuck after getting off the ship, and a few of the PCs froze up over the course of the night (though they were rapidly fixed). The build was about a month old, apparently.

[SughdianWarrior]

5 - Is the food system different to Shogun 2? If so in what way?

This is interesting (new to me). Much like S2 food will dictate happiness and growth. Additionally, if you are in negative global food, replenishment will stop completely. If individual provinces have negative food, friendly armies stationed there will suffer attrition. A more in depth system.

This is cool stuff! Means we can starve our enemies now.

[nubcaker]

- Sometimes when units disembark from ships, they fall over.

[Spartacus041]

Is Joey CA single?

[Mr. Bundy]

Blood dlc?

[TotalWarker]

Blood dlc?

They can't answer that until after release due to it affecting rating laws etc, although if it is released, it wont be till after September (from previous thread)

[Derkon]

They can't answer that until after release due to it affecting rating laws etc, although if it is released, it wont be till after September (from previous thread)

I think since they released an official Blood Pack DLC for Shogun 2 it's probably a safe bet that Rome 2 will get one at some time post release! However, firstly, it should be free, and secondly, no blood spatter on the player cam please!

[Rittsy]

I think since they released an official Blood Pack DLC for Shogun 2 it's probably a safe bet that Rome 2 will get one at some time post release! However, firstly, it should be free, and secondly, no blood spatter on the player cam please!

It wont be free because of certain ratings laws in countries (namely Australia), but it should be relatively cheap. Shogun II's was only $0.99.

[Toho]

how many unique cities are there? name those cities and tell us how many unique cities each culture will have.

[General George S. Patton]

when might we see a creation kit?

[Karnil Vark Khaitan]

How will food and money play out in Rome 2?

[Lockcaps]

1. Not really a question, but please tell Al Bickham to ZOOM IN DURING THE VIDEOS SO WE CAN SEE THE ANIMATIONS THEY ARE ALWAYS GOING ON ABOUT YET NEVER SHOWING

2. Do the tech trees differ from faction to faction within the culture groups? Ie. will Macedon have the same tech tree as Sparta?

3. Do the army traditions differ from faction to faction or culture to culture?

[SacredPie]

Will Carthage have it's own culture (phoenican)? If so: How many cultures will there actually be? (we only know barbarian, greek, roman, eastern)
if not: Will you then have many variations within each culture so we can spot crucial differences and which culture will Carthage be a part of?

[TotalWarker]

1. Not really a question, but please tell Al Bickham to ZOOM IN DURING THE VIDEOS SO WE CAN SEE THE ANIMATIONS THEY ARE ALWAYS GOING ON ABOUT YET NEVER SHOWING

2. Do the tech trees differ from faction to faction within the culture groups? Ie. will Macedon have the same tech tree as Sparta?

3. Do the army traditions differ from faction to faction or culture to culture?

1. Nope
2. Fairly sure they have said each faction gets its own
3. Potentially one for the list...

Will Carthage have it's own culture (phoenican)? If so: How many cultures will there actually be? (we only know barbarian, greek, roman, eastern)
if not: Will you then have many variations within each culture so we can spot crucial differences and which culture will Carthage be a part of?

Think Carthage was under Greek culture in the demo where they showed the front end

[SacredPie]

1. Nope
2. Fairly sure they have said each faction gets its own
3. Potentially one for the list...



Think Carthage was under Greek culture in the demo where they showed the front end

No a thread was started i think showing that Carthage possibly had a culture different to macedon (whom they were compared with in a screenshot)

[SamueleD]

Please, ask them to show us barbarian ships

[Xyloto]

Will siege battles in the campaign be as big/epic in scale as the siege of carthage? Would be nice if I got that question answered.

[TotalWarker]

Will siege battles in the campaign be as big/epic in scale as the siege of carthage? Would be nice if I got that question answered.

These will vary based on the size of city surely?

Bear in mind I wont get long people.

[SacredPie]

Also i wonder if iconic locations like Thermopylae (don't mistake me for a 300 fanboy, there were actually many battles for thermopylae) are present on the campaign map if you launch a battle in the right location. Like they said it could happen with Teutoburg forest.