Empire Total War - naval battle gameplay trailer released

[Raptor1]

Ugh, we have to wait until February...

Naval battles were one of the things I missed the most in the Total War series (Mostly in Rome), good to see they're adding them in the era where they're really needed

[Mush Martin]

that looks really awesome.

[tater]

Wow, that looks cool. Wonder if it will have fantasy sailing like potbs.

Probably.

[tater]

Just as I feared:

While watching gameplay of the naval fights, Mark spelled out the company's approach to the subject. "We are creating a naval battle with wind, maneuverability and ammo types," he says, "but it's important to stress that we're not going out of our way to create a rigid naval simulation in terms of the sailing aspect." That's in keeping with the series' goals of creating the impression of historical fighting without necessarily getting bogged down in tiresome details.

More eye candy with no substance.

[Captain Vlad]

That's the philosiphy they've stuck too for every Total War game thus far. They've yet to make a weak or uninvolving game.

[tater]

I wouldn't know, I've not bought any of them. Course I also maintain that RTS games are neither real time (NONE are, obviously), nor strategy (most are more tactical).

None the less, I'd dearly love to see a good age of fighting sail simulator. Contrary to what some have said on other boards (potbs, for example), there is no reason why a realistic sailing model has to be too hard for players to master. It's entirely a question of the UI for the game. In addition, with the player as Captain (or Admiral), there is no need for them to be overly concerned with HOW the ship does what they wish, just that it does it as well as possible. For an "EZ mode" give your ship an AI sailing master. As skipper, you order the boat to be placed at pistol shot from the target, on the same tack, and the Master makes it happen.

From an interface standpoint, you could have the ability to place a target marked on the sea, and the game would draw a rough path line showing how the ship would get where you want it placed. If the target point is upwind, it could draw tacks to get you there, and you could hit a key to swap wearing for tacking, and sliders for the length of the legs of the tacks (down to the minimum possible length based on crew and timing).

Anyway, it could be done so that as skipper you are concerned with the path the ship takes, but the officers and men make it happen. It need not require the player to reef every sail by hand.

SH suffers the same poor paradigm for the position of the player, BTW. We either have to do ALL the jobs, or it's made ridiculously easy. Ideally, the player would be skipper, and his firing party would plot his observations, etc. We'd have a model between what we call 100% realism—which unrealistically requires the captain to do jobs he never did in RL), and auto targeting which is is joke.

UI is everything.

[Captain Vlad]

Originally Posted by tater

I wouldn't know, I've not bought any of them. Course I also maintain that RTS games are neither real time (NONE are, obviously), nor strategy (most are more tactical).

They're quite good. How much do you know about them, interface wise? Only the battles are 'real time'.

None the less, I'd dearly love to see a good age of fighting sail simulator.

Me too, but I wasn't expecting one from Empire: Total War. Producing a full on sailing sim would be a massive project if you wanted to do it justice, and naval battles are only part of the whole.