Total War: Rome II will be the most epic game in the Total War series
Yesterday at the gaming exhibition Rezzed, held in Brighton (UK), Creative Assembly shared some details about their new project [Total War: Rome II](/games?search=Total War: Rome II) with journalists.
In particular, James Russell mentioned that [Total War: Rome II](/games?search=Total War: Rome II) will be the bloodiest and most brutal game in the history of the [Total War](/games?search=Total War) series.
Here are some quotes from James Russell's presentation yesterday.
• We want to portray the common soldier as realistically as possible in the game. Facial animation will be implemented. Battles will be as bloody and brutal as possible. For example, if an arrow hits a warrior, we will respond to that. We aim for the player to feel the full power of the Roman war machine of that period, the uniqueness of how Roman soldiers fought.
• Our goal in Total War: Rome II is to show battle scenes like you’ve never seen in any computer game before. And we are confident that we will succeed. I am not exaggerating. This is not a marketing gimmick on my part.
• We want the player to decide for themselves what they want to do: save the Roman Republic or create the Roman Empire.
In the game, you will see clashes between different tactics of warfare, diverse cultures, completely different architectural styles, and various options for the surrounding environment.
• The campaign map will be significantly larger than the original Rome. We will fight against savage barbarians, crush Hellenistic states, and visit distant and exotic eastern lands and deserts.
• What we have shown is far from the final version of the game. We will need to add many visual effects and improve the overall detail of all game components. The final version of the game will look significantly better than what you saw today.
James Russell also mentioned that there are currently 20 designers, 36 programmers, and 40 artists working on Project Rome II.
At the end of his presentation, James Russell said, "Realism is the servant of the game, but not its master." Demonstrating an image of a burning pig.
Here’s what is known about the game as of today.
• The Total War: Rome II project will be much larger than the original Rome: Total War.
• The strategic map will include all the lands of original Rome but will stretch significantly further east (I think India will be included. Author's note). At the same time, the map itself will become more detailed compared to the original.
• Besides Rome, the game will feature many other playable factions, each meticulously detailed.
• Each faction, general, and agent will have their unique tech tree.
• The time frame of the game will begin just before the First Punic War and will end either during the reign of Emperor Trajan or Emperor Constantine.
• In the game for Rome, there will be named legions.
• Each legion will gain not only experience but also special lifelong perks earned through participation in battles. The quality of the perk will depend on how well that legion performed in battle.
• You will be able to recruit both individual units and entire legions (when playing as Rome).
• During battles, soldiers will have facial animations (fear, anger, smirk, joy, surprise, calmness, etc.) reflecting their morale during skirmishes on the tactical map.
• A full stack will now equal 40 units. However, even in a unit, there may sometimes be more than one military entity.
• During battles, an army of allies or an army from our faction standing nearby (also consisting of 40 units) may come to our aid. The same type of armies will be present for enemies. This means that when bringing your full stack against an enemy stack, be prepared for substantial reinforcements to arrive during the battle.
• A city can be stormed both from the land and the sea simultaneously.
• The game will feature full-fledged naval battles.
• During sieges of cities and fortresses, the attacking side will use siege ladders, battering rams, siege towers, etc.
• Romans will eventually be able to form their heavy infantry into the Testudo (Tortoise) formation. Additionally, Romans will be allowed to raise their shields completely, without breaking ranks, to shield themselves from incoming projectiles from enemy ranged units from the frontal side.
• Romans will be able to use tactics of rotating fighting legionaries with fresh soldiers during battles. This will happen clearly and disciplined, without disrupting the battle formation of the legion.
• Ships can be brought to a coastal city to bombard it with long-range artillery mounted on the ships.
• The size of the army transported by sea will directly depend on the amount of fleet.
• There will be tens of thousands of soldiers involved in battles.
• It will be possible to land troops from ships onto the shore directly on the tactical battle map.
• The game will return the capturing of enemies during battles, and statistics will return the number of surviving soldiers who suffered minor injuries and returned to service after the battle.
• The game will again feature dramatic speeches from generals before battles, and these speeches will now have a cinematic level of spectacle.
• An entirely new AI is being created for the game. According to CA, it (the new AI) will astonish players with its smart actions both on the strategic map and during battles on the tactical map.
• The game engine is not entirely new. The developers have almost completely overhauled the current Warscape engine for the creation of the game. They have changed it so significantly that it is essentially a new game engine, capable of realizing a large-scale project like Total War: Rome II.
• In one interview, the developers admitted that they worked on many innovations in Shogun 2 and Shogun 2: Fall of the Samurai to then transfer them to the second Rome. The games centered around Japanese themes became a sort of testing ground for various innovations in the Total War series.
• A completely new hand-to-hand combat animation will be introduced in the game. Soldiers will learn how to utilize numerical advantages in battle and will be able to strike enemies from behind (finally, the "ballet" present in hand-to-hand combat since Empire will disappear).
• The game will, of course, have multiplayer, but the developers emphasized that the main focus during development will be on single-player campaigns, both for Rome and other playable factions.
• The main territorial unit in the game will be a province. The essence of this system is that one province will consist of several regions, allowing the player to conquer different regions. Moreover, the conquest of different regions within a province will yield entirely different strategic effects. Each province will have a central management region. Players can expand their borders bypassing the central region of the province, but to fully control the entire province, they must capture all regions within it. What this will look like in the game is still somewhat unclear.
There will be about 100 provinces and several hundred regions.
• The game will abound with bloody scenes during battles. There is a possibility that CA will be the first to move the game to an 18+ rating due to the marketing research indicating significant interest in the game (which is not surprising since Rome is Rome).
• The game is expected to be released in the fall of 2013.
• CA will release a lot of additional game content for the game, commonly known as DLC (who would doubt that).
• The developers decided to abandon the mini-map that always showed the positioning of both friendly and enemy units during battles. CA stated this is because the battlefield maps will become significantly larger, and the mini-map will not be able to display units properly. Instead of the mini-map, CA will implement a sharp camera lift, allowing the player to see the complete picture of what is happening on the battlefield, with units represented as small squares, diamonds, triangles, etc.
• The developers have also decided to introduce a special mode for zooming in on the fight. By selecting a unit that is engaged in combat, you can activate the cinematic mode to view the battle from the most spectacular angles (if you have the time to do so during combat). Once this button is activated, the camera will quickly zoom toward your selected unit and showcase the fight from the most cinematic angles. At the same time, the developers assured that they would leave the battle camera fully free, allowing players to rotate the camera in all directions and use optical zoom as before, personally adjusting the proximity and distance of the camera from the selected object on the battlefield.
• During city sieges, there will be bloody street fights. Battles will also take place within buildings. Now, to capture a city or fortress, it is no longer sufficient to seize the central square. Multiple key points within the city must be captured and held. And the larger the city and fortress, the more key points are required to capture.
• A new army management system will be introduced during battle. The developers state that this is due to the drastically increased number of units under your command. The management system promises to be fundamentally new. What this means is still unclear. However, players will still be allowed to manage individual units, as in previous Total War games.
• The limit of time for large battles will equal one hour, but this function can be turned off as before, making the battle last until a victorious end. In this case, a large battle can last quite a while, from one and a half to two hours of real time. Nevertheless, the developers have rejected the possibility of saving during tactical battles, reasoning that large battles will not happen that often, thus it should not tire the player. Battles between smaller groups of opponents will last from 15 to 30 minutes of real time.
And finally, I would like to demonstrate screenshots that, to put it mildly, are of not very high quality, taken by an unknown person from some gaming magazine.
Sorry for the quality of the screenshots.
Here are two real screenshots from the pre-alpha version of the game Total War: Rome II.
Sources: Total War Center Eurogamer.net Rockpapershotgun.com