Q: What are the future plans of the modding team after releasing the campaign and completing the mod?
A: Probably just keep on going as usual, really. We've still got a hell of a lot of things to do, mostly kind of flesh out a lot of the extra things we'd like to add in. The release will be mostly focusing on foreign conflict and war, instead of the internal struggles and politics, but those will come later on.
Q: Why nobody say nothing about release? Is the campaign map far to be release? (sic?)
A: We're not really talking about it because, A), we're not entirely sure. We have about six guys working on this mod, and we don't always know where each of us is. We do have to wait on each other - well, not wait, but we need to know where everyone is before we can give an update or release date.
The thing about the original release date is that, when we set it, we thought we could actually hit it... Like two weeks before release, though, everyone started getting really busy - with university or other things. We can't do this full-time.
Q: Will this mod have the supply?
A: Yep. It's done already, really.
Q: Will be civil wars?
A: Yes, there will be - currently there will only be generic civil wars, but we have bigger plans for larger, more complex civil wars. Especially Rome. The big, cool events will come much later, like the Cimbrian Invasion.
Q: Can you raze settlements?
A: How else are you going to salt Carthage?
Q: What features would be in the first release and so on?
A: Mostly just the basic features - basic rebels, almost vanilla but with manpower, population, and supply. It's not close to the end result, but will be on the way there.
Since it's Attila, we have to throw out almost everything from Attila and build it again from scratch.
Q: If I lose all my regions, is it possible to become a horde?
A: No, unfortunately.
Q: Is there a no-music mod?
A: No. Music is not moddable. We are looking into adding custom cities (?), but it is impossible to edit the map and add further cities. This is why we chose a later timeframe, to avoid the focus on Sicily.
Q: Will Rally / War Cry be nerfed?
A: We like them as they are, at the moment. We may adjust them if it is too much - we'll look into it if it becomes a serious problem.
Q: Will you make Elephants and Pikes weaker? Will you add additional units to the Iberian factions, Macedon, Pergamon, Rhodes?
A: Elephants and pikes have already been nerfed.
Adding units - we may not do it straightaway. Iberian factions seem to have enough units already? A lot of the smaller ones could do with more units, however, because we kind of just threw them in as little extra factions, especially because everyone needs units. They were somewhat just thrown in last minute, but we did put a lot of thought into them. A lot of people moan about Parthia, but we simply don't have the historical evidence to add more at this moment - we just need to do more research, make more models.
Q: Will you make campaign previews?
A: Probably not. We're not sure. Until release, since many people are working on the mod, it is all in separate packs - which makes it difficult to put together and preview as a work in progress.
Q: Can we get a better, more in-depth explanation of the BAI / CAI and the morale?
A: Well, basically, the BAI and CAI are completely different. The BAI cannot be altered / modeled that much, but only influenced. If you make running fatigue heavy while walking regains fatigue, they'll focus on walking. We're trying to make reserves, but it's tough going. Keeping consistent is difficult. It will often take the easiest option... It's at least a little more intelligent now, though, like it will use its skirmishers to attack your cavalry and stuff, and it will flank your units with cavalry.
But it's still not that much of a challenge unless you give it bonuses via difficulty. The buffs should not be obvious, but will make a significant difference on the battlefield.
We'd recommend hard as the difficulty.
Campaign AI is mostly taken from other CAI mods, so if you've played other mods that improve CAI you probably know how it will go. From what I've seen, which is to say the only two armies which exist in game (Scipio versus Hannibal), if ever I lost that than the AI would immediately start declaring war. They're more aggressive - and once I built a new army they began begging for peace. More politically minded and aggressive.
Q: How exactly are you planning to make the campaign take 1200 turns? Won't that be an extreme grind?
A: We don't quite know yet? A lot of it will be making the day-to-day things quite interesting, especially politics - which will make it more difficult but more fun. We don't have completely concrete plans yet.
The main aim of making it last long is making the wars take longer. Conquering a region, conquering a faction should be a slog, and difficult. You shouldn't be able to blob over the planet in a few hundred turns.
Q: How many TPY?
A: Four.
Q: Have you nerfed agents?
A: Yes, we have. I'm not entirely sure how - it won't be quite the same as it was in our Rome II version. You can't go around destroying entire armies with them anymore. The main idea is that spies will be focused on scouting, with low assassination chance. Champions aren't going to exist, we're going to do something different with them - a new sort of agent, depending on the faction. For Rome, it will be a [Governer? he mumbled]. [Something about diplomatic relations.]
Q: How much disk space will this mod take up?
A: Oh christ. I don't know - it's seven gigs already... There's a lot of the campaign in that, so it shouldn't be too much bigger? Eight, nine gigs, maybe?
Expect the worst.
Q: Is the upgrade system for generals changed?
A: I have no idea what that is, so probably not!
[If it's traits:] We've completely changed traits, but we cannot tell you about that yet.
Q: Any changes to diplomacy?
A: Isn't that the same as Campaign AI? As far as options go, nothing's changed.
Q: [Long question about how enemy armies get wiped out too easily when defending cities]
A: Capturing anywhere is going to be considerably more difficult, and governing it afterwards is going to be punishing. They won't like you. Manpower and population will need to regenerate as well. There will be many different options for governing as well.
Q: Will the co-op campaign work probably?
A: Maybe initially, no - we are working on increasing compatibility for co-op. Most of it should work, but some mechanics might not play nicely. If it's not ready by release, it shouldn't take too much longer afterwards.
Q: Can the BAI use its reserves as intended? Will we ever see the BAI properly cycle-charge?
A: They occasionally cycle-charge already.
Q: Will we see new unit formations, such as the infantry wedge?
A: We'll probably stick with the ones we have now. Formations sometimes mess up the way the battle works, and we've taken out some mechanics such as formation attack. If we do add formations, the AI will almost always use it, no matter the downsides.
Q: Can the CAI expand and build an empire?
A: I bloody well hope so, otherwise it's pretty useless. Again, we don't know until we can test it ourselves.
Q: In terms of morale, will shattered units ever come back?
A: It will probably stay as-is. If you lose 30-40% of your troop, they probably won't come back, but anything higher than that they should come back. If they have something to come back to, they will come back.
Q: Will we see altered battle maps?
A: Yes, but not in the initial release. It's not an easy process, because the tools either don't work or aren't available. The tools we do have don't work entirely as intended. One just crashes when loaded. While completely custom maps might not work, we may be able to port Rome II more easily.
Some things are easy to add, others are hard. Chariots were an absolute b***h to get in...
Q: Will each faction have personal generals and events?
A: Many factions will have famous historical generals, but some of the more obscure factions will not. All of the greek states will have them, at least. As for events, that will come with the political systems.
Q: Will the political system be an update, or a big release?
A: We'll have some junk updates here and there, which will alter things but not break saves, but around Christmas time (MAYBE) we'll hopefully have some things available. Mainly there will be big updates. Other later things will be actual, historical events - the gallic wars, punic wars.
Will also look into adding new campaigns on the DLC maps, but this will be a distant, distant goal. Maybe even a new mod team entirely.
We do intend to have events all the way to 100 AD. The social wars, for example.
Q: How will you depict the importance of the Mediterranean? How major will naval forces be?
A: It's going to be interesting, I think. Ports will import food, and blocking ports will cut off that food supply. It will be considerably faster to sail armies instead of marching them over land - navies to intercept will be important.
Q: How far can they travel?
A: Armies can move much further, though it's not completely realistic (you could probably march from one end of the map to the other in a few months). Two or three times as far movement. Naval movement in particular will be able to go far - from the tip of Gibraltar to Corsica in one turn. Fleets can just scoot around and raid.
Navies probably won't have the manpower whatsoever to take cities - while you can raid and defeat transport forces, and garrisons, you probably won't be able to take the cities themselves.
Q: How will AE use embarking rules and transports?
A: Seasickness will remain for untrained units. Transports will definitely be slower, but they won't be useless. They'll not be able to move the first turn after embarking. My main idea is that if you want a land army to travel somewhere you would need to go to a port city and embark from there... Obviously factions without ports will need an alternative.
While they're embarking would be an opportune time to strike with an actual navy.
Q: How strong will naval garrisons be?
A: Probably like... Five units, maybe? Land garrisons are going to be considerably stronger. Walled cities will, naturally, be much larger than smaller cities. Walled will probably have a full stack of just garrison - not great units, but they'll have the numbers.
Arrow towers are nerfed. They won't be nearly as destructive, but will still be effective. Less accurate, but fire quicker. The intention was an extremely  archer unit attached to the walls.
You're probably gonna need one and a half or more armies to take a typical city. Or just to sit and starve them out.
Q: How will other, less maritime-focused factions' ships work?
A: For now, at least, they're basically just boarding vessels. They're not much... They are navies in that they're not just transport ships, but they're certainly not as effective as other empires' ships. You won't be wanting to take on artillery ships one-on-one.
The barbarian factions aren't going to be seeing much naval warfare anyways - and if you do get the Mediterranean coast, you'll be wanting to hire mercenaries and pirates and such instead of relying on your ships.
Q: Anything else?
A: Split armies, I want to talk about. It's not going to be in the initial release, for sure. We didn't think we could do it - our reaction was similar to your reaction, in that "Oh, we can do that not! Cool!"
It's going to be a relatively large change. It'll change a lot of things in the campaign... We're not sure how to handle it yet, whether you can make infinite split armies or not. If it works, we could even get rid of garrisons entirely, rely on split armies for it all..
It's going to be a lot of design work for it all. Probably going to be a lot of arguments in the forums about how to handle it. It will be interesting to try and balance.
I can't wait until [I sit in a chair and do that?], it's probably one of my favorite things - although politics is probably the thing that I'm looking forward to the most, since it will change so much. It might not be the first thing after the initial release, but it depends on who's free... Our scripter's probably got the most momentum.
The population mechanic will need to be finished off at the start - it won't have all the effects we want, for example. Higher populations will need more food, and give more tax, and need larger cities as space... Some of these won't be finished on release.
We definitely wouldn't have gotten this far without the whole team. |
Q and A video with Petellius
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Originally Posted by Garensterz
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