 | Treasure and prizes - Thursday, July 24, 2003 |  |
| Two things today lads and lasses. First of all CA have updated their buildings description thread over at .com today. The newest addition is the Great Treasury. So start thinking about who you'd like to appoint as your tribuni aerarii. Also there's the opportunity for two talented and presentable individuals to spend a week at the BBC fighting ancient battles with the RTW engine. See this page for competition details. Good luck too anybody who fancies their chances. | ||
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| Totalwar.com forums - Wednesday, July 23, 2003 | |
| A message from Totalwar.com webmaster: The redirect from: www.totalwarforums.com seems to be down at the moment. I have fixed the links from www.totalwar.com so they now use they ezboard address : http://pub133.ezboard.com/bshoguntotalwar So can every one please change their bookmarks to that for now while I try and sort out what's wrong with the ISP that hosts the redirect. | ||
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| Three New RTW Screenshots - Friday, July 18, 2003 | |
| Totalwar.com have just realesed three new Rtw screenshots you can find them here. The Three Screenshots | ||
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| FAQ answers by Creative Assembly. - Thursday, July 10, 2003 | |
| 1)How will trade work in the game? A) From a player's point of view, fairly simply. You'll be able to build roads (naturally, as a Roman) and trade fleets to connect your cities, and they'll then trade automatically with other cities to which they are connected. The range of goods that they can deal in is based on historical information, so you'll find lead in Britannia, olives and oil around the Mediterranean and so on. You can also improve trade by building and upgrading marketplaces in settlements and cities. Armies as well as pirates and brigands will be able to interdict trade routes and cut city income, which will lead to some forces sitting in key locations (such as mountain passes) to protect or ruin trade. 2)what role will ships play in Rome? A) A) Naval combat is abstracted in Rome: Total War. A quick back-of-the-envelope calculation showed us that the average player would die of old age if he had to fight through all the naval battles on top of the all the land battles. In conventional circles, it's considered frightfully bad form to kill your players. :) However, the abstract system isn't as abstract as the one in Medieval: Total War. Sea regions don't exist in the game, so it is possible to position fleets to blockade and cut off cities. It's also possible, therefore, to sail around enemy fleets or just attack a portion of a blockading force. You won't get to control at a battlefield level, but you do get a finer degree of 'operational' command. We've also tried to include an interesting mix of ancient warships. 3)What will be the level of diplomacy, strategic management and empire building in RTW? A) This is a huge question - and covers pretty much everything in the strategic game apart from marching armies into enemy territory! No, hang on, that's diplomacy at sword-point... The diplomacy system we're developing is deeper and 'richer' than in Medieval: Total War. You'll be able to offer subtle deals to rivals involving more than just military alliances, so you'll be able to strike trade agreements, gain permission to pass through other lands, sell cities, take on client kingdoms and much more besides. The strategic management is the heart of the game, of course! It's up to you how much you automate through city governors and how much detailed management you do, so there's as much or as little as you want! You can split your time between building an empire and bashing enemies in battle to suit your own tastes. 4)To boil it down, are there more than one city per province? A) The game doesn't work in this fashion. The assumption is that 'provinces' are fixed areas on the map, which they aren't. Each settlement has a region around it which can be exploited by that city. It'll only exploit the whole region when it's properly developed. 5)Will there be a demo and - dare I ask - when? A) Yes, there will be a demo. We think it's fair to say that holding your breath while waiting for it will not be a very good idea. There's a fair way to go yet before the game is releasable as a demo, and we want the demo to be as good as possible. 6)Have the tree models been improved? they are nuisance in MTW (hard to draw formation in forest, much more difficult to select).. STW tree models were so much better. A) With the shift to a full 3D system, you'll be impressed by the new 'look and feel' of battlefields. Trying to fight through the German forests won't be very easy though - and it shouldn't be! 7)Will certain buildings like the concept of the triumph (a procession for a victorious general through Rome) be used in any way? Perhaps as a reward or a way to "level up" a general? A) It will be possible to obtain Triumphal arches and columns in the game. Romans will get these as a gift from the Senate - going around erecting your own Triumphal arches lacks a certain Roman 'dignitas' and looks a bit sad, now doesn't it? 8)How well developed will the roleplaying aspect of the game be, in light of things such as the personality of the generals, i.e. V&V system from MTW? A) Vices and Virtues are in the game, a development of the system that appeared in Medieval: Total War. VnVs are logically linked to in-game events, so a character will gain these little quirks depending on what happens during a game. Some are not under the player's control: a General who is unlucky enough to be present when there's an earthquake might develop the feeling that the Gods are trying to get him, for example! There's a system in place that allows us to check all kinds of conditions for a character, and then assign points weighting his chances of picking up some kind of character trait (either a vice or virtue). Some vices and virtues are limited to some factions in the game - even some families! What is different is that many of these VnVs are mutually exclusive: there won't be any kind-hearted harsh rulers, for example. VnVs can even be assigned for doing nothing, so a character who wastes his life will pick up, erm, disgusting habits if there happen to be fleshpots in the neighbourhood, or extra political and military skills if there happens to be an academy. The whole VnV system is altogether more transparent than it was last time, and should add a lot of 'character' to characters! 9)We have had hints from MikeB that night battles are possible, and yet the turns seem still to be yearly things. So if we can pick what time of day we want to attack, will we also be able to pick the season? A) Night battles will be possible, for example when attacking a city or sallying forth to beat up besiegers. You might also want to attack at dawn in the traditional fashion! 10)Will it be possible to attack the agricultural base on which a city depends, something like slash and burn tactics, perhaps as a way to hurt the enemy without having to attack the cities themselves? Along the same vein, will the agriculture around a city be damaged during sieges as the besieging troops tear up crops to feed themselves? A) Yes: strategically by sitting an army on or near a city's farmlands. Being besieged will reduce the agricultural base around a city, of course. 11)Will the maps file become more customizable: deployment zones, no go zones, terrain properties (swamp, rock, small rivers having different speed modifiers), usage of custom textures and model folders, reinforcement type. A) Yes, and we're including an editor - the tool we're using in house for the job - to help players create maps for themselves. If you want to customise Rome: Total War maps, you'll have everything that our own experts have at your fingertips! | ||
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| What would you do to see RTW? - Thursday, July 3, 2003 | |
| Do you see your self barking mad? are you gagging to play Rome: Totalwar now? well the makers of Rome: Totalwar, Creative Assembly are offering a once of a lifetime offer to play the Rome: Totalwar demo. But theres a catch, you must say the most outrageous thing you would do for the offer, then perform it! think your up for the challege? then go here. Good Luck. | ||
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