Gaming Empire: Total War hands-on preview

[Tim S]

http://www.bit-tech.net/gaming/2008/...s-on-preview/1

The Total War series is very highly regarded at bit-tech and Empire: Total War, the next game in the series, is just a few months away from release. We visited The Creative Assembly earlier this month to see how the game is shaping up. Read on to find out what we thought...

[Bauul]

Looks... really quite awesome.

And props for being on Steam too!

[impar]

Greetings!

No PhysX?!
nVidia lied then?

Do you know if it was GPU or CPU powered?

[Tim S]

CA wouldn't delve any deeper than what was written in the article... it could, feasibly, be written to take advantage of CUDA and not specifically PhysX. Funcom has done that with the Age of Conan DX10 patch (which interestingly still hasn't been released).

[impar]

Greetings!

Originally Posted by Tim S

... it could, feasibly, be written to take advantage of CUDA and not specifically PhysX.

Still leaving ATi card owners in the cold.

[Tim S]

Quite possibly, yes, although it could also have been written in OpenCL (whose spec is 'final' but not officially released yet)... without confirmation from the developer, we're basically speculating on the outcome. If it is written to use CUDA though, it will also run on the CPU (albeit much slower or with less objects).

[impar]

Greetings!

I find this... funny, since I didnt bought the 4870 when it came out because nVidia claimed ETW would support PhysX.
Then delayed the GTX260 purchase waiting for the 216 version and am now waiting for the 55nm version.
Hopefullly it comes with the revised PCB and cooler similar to the new 9800GTX+s.


Back to the game, how are the troops and ships transfers from one theatre to another handled?

[Claave]

"how are the troops and ships transfers from one theatre to another handled?"

Good question - unfortunately CA didn't show us how ships move from one theatre to the next. I'm guessing you'll send a ship to the western-most edge of the European map to travel to the North American theatre (eg), but y'never know know with CA - maybe it will seamless.

[impar]

Greetings!

Originally Posted by Claave

... but y'never know know with CA - maybe it will seamless.

Probably wormholes or hyperspace based technologies.

[Veles]

I can't wait

It is difficult to think where they could go from here, I wouldn't say no to a Shogun 2 though

Are there gonna be mongols in this one?

[chrisb2e9]

if a ship catches fire, crew is diverted away from the guns to put it out,

Too bad for the crew that its not based on the farcry 2 engine. that way the fire would only spread a set distance and then go out. Leaving them to man the guns.
(that was a joke people)

[Redbeaver]

that graphics looks bloody awesome!

[Baz]

Between this, Dawn of War 2 and Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor, it'll be a wonder if I get any work at all done next spring!

[Veles]

More CoH too?!

Thinking about it, does the depth of a formation effect the amount of people that can fire? I read in your article about the thin line to get as many guns to bear getting smashed which would imply it does. I remember in the previous total war games you could have your archers in a nice easily manoeuvrable block as all rows could fire.

[mclean007]

While we were clearly playing a beta build of the sea battle which needs tweaking – the French ships would rout at the first sign of cannon fire

Sounds about right to me.

[Claave]

Originally Posted by Veles

does the depth of a formation effect the amount of people that can fire?

As far as I understand things, it does. Muskets have to be fired fairly horizontally, so people in the second row can't fire unless the front row ducks (I believe this might be a drill/upgrade that you can research, but CA isn't being ultra-clear about this at this stage).

However, arrows (yes, there are still archers) need to fire more vertically, so all the men in a unit of archers should be able to fire no matter how deep the unit is.

[Batou]

Any idea as to system req's?

[impar]

Greetings!

Originally Posted by Veles

I remember in the previous total war games you could have your archers in a nice easily manoeuvrable block as all rows could fire.

They would fire, but not as accurately as in a line.

[Veles]

Originally Posted by impar

They would fire, but not as accurately as in a line.

Ah, I didn't know that, I'll have to change my tactics a bit.

What I'm really hoping for is cleverer units, especially when persuing. Many, many times I've become frustrated at my cavalry running full pelt all at one guy, and when he dies they just casually trot behind the rest of the fleeing troops.

Trample them into the ground damn you! I want my fields of blood!

[impar]

Greetings!

Originally Posted by Veles

What I'm really hoping for is cleverer units, especially when persuing.

The pursuing unit (eg: cavalry) always tends to go to the center of the pursued unit (eg: infantry). If the infantry unit is too scattered, the cavalry behaves erratically.
Its easier if you micro-manage the cavalry, make it stop to regroup, wait for all the infantry to be at the front of the cavalry and then issue the atack command.
That way the cavalry still goes to the center of the infantry but hopeffully finishes off the stragglers.