Empire Total War - naval battle gameplay trailer released

[stabiz]

Originally Posted by AJ!

Now if that is true then that has just made my day

I am 99% sure someone from CA said this in a thread at twcenter, the reason for these trails is so you will easier see whats shooting at what.

Anyway, if its not an option its probably the first mod we will see.

In other news Empire is supposedly easier to modify, and a WW1-mod is allready announced.

[Raptor1]

WW1? I wonder if that'll work

What I would like to see is the game going into the Victorian era either through a mod or an expansion, going from ca. 1830 to ca. 1895, that would be great

[tater]

One thing about wind specific to the AoE idea of a more strategic look at things. Wind is HUGELY important for Napoleonic naval strategy. The RN's blockades were very highly wind dependent, as were French chances at slipping out of port. Part of what made different ports, coasts, and islands strategically important had to do with prevailing winds. Not including wind would be like not having "General Winter" in Bonny's campaign into Russia.

Just saying.

Naval stuff always gets the short end of the stick.

tater

[AJ!]

In all fairness tater, People over at the other total war forums seem to be at the same conclusion that the naval aspect of empire has had a lot more time and effort spent on it then the land battles. This has come about due to the quality of some of the land screenshots which i think look fine apart from the poor quality in the town shot which looks worse then M2TW.

That WW1 mod sounds fantastic. Trench warfare and dreadnoughts sounds good

[Raptor1]

Sheesh, you make it sound like wind will not effect anything at all...

[AJ!]

Originally Posted by Raptor1

Sheesh, you make it sound like wind will not effect anything at all...

CA have already stated that wind will play a big part in the naval battles although things will be alittle faster for game play purposes. I see what tater means about AoS games having a lack of realism but theres got to be line drawn for gaming.

[tater]

Can you sail into the wind, regardless of speed, yes, or no?

If you can always steer the way you want, then it is exactly analogous to a flight sim with no gravity.

For example, take a strategic level movement of a squadron. You order 8 sail of the line, and as many frigates to the West Indies. If ships can always sail into the wind (or even with NO wind) at 3 knots, then there is a maximum time for transit. It might be shorter, but it would NEVER be longer. In reality, transit times across the Atlantic were extremely variable. On squadron gets stuck in the doldrums for weeks, another barely hits them, gets the Trades, and is on its way. The transit times and uncertainties are critically important for trying to have a strategic scale game.

That's another reason "real time strategy" games are not real time, not strategy. They are tactical, effectively since the real strategic thinking is gone.

Going back to an old grognard sci fi board game, 5th Frontier War did a great job of getting that age of sail feel since travel took time, as did ORDERS. In that game a turn was one week, and you needed to plot movements 5 weeks in advance. There were some admiral counters that could be in fleets, and would allow them to act independently. Cool idea, though.

That would be neat in a Napoleonic game, to have to send forces with orders, and they only have limited latitude to act outside their orders. The player would have an imposed fog of war, and would only see the situation at the point he hears about it (riders sent with information, or ships sent with dispatches, etc).

I can dream

[Raptor1]

That would be kinda hard to simulate when the startegic game is turn-based and each turn takes 1-2 years, wouldn't it?

They couldn't do something like this even if they wanted to