Total War: Rome II Offers Spielberg-Level Drama

[Jeremy Wilkinson]

Total War: Rome II Offers Spielberg-Level Drama

The Creative Assembly wants you to care about the soldiers you send marching to their doom.

Soldiers in real-time strategy games are quite often seen as a rather expendable resource. Some commonly-used tactics include sending countless units to near-certain death in an attempt to overwhelm the enemy by numbers, with little care for the troops who will ultimately fall. Total War developer The Creative Assembly specifically wants to avoid this in its next title, Rome II.

Rob Bartholomew, brand director for The Creative Assembly, told MCV that "Saving Private Ryan [is] a phrase we're using around the office a lot because we're trying to inject that real feeling of horrific warfare." Despite the vastly increased number of units visible on the battlefield, The Creative Assembly hopes that players will feel a greater impact from losing troops in battle.

The Creative Assembly's ultimate plan is to make players more emotionally invested in their soldiers by giving them a far more visible personality than ever before. More time and money will be spent improving the units' animation, and the game will make use of facial motion capture to further humanize the characters. "We want to create that level of human strife, drama and character on a very macro-scale amongst these gigantic battles," Bartholomew said.

The team's comparisons to Saving Private Ryan don't stop at the emotions involved, either. For the first time in the series, land- and sea-based combat will merge into one, allowing players to storm Roman beaches in a manner similar to the invasion of Normandy.

While adding more personality to the faceless peons present in most strategy games is a laudable goal, it'll be interesting to see if the team manages to pull it off. It will probably be quite tricky to make players feel more strongly about their soldiers when there are so many more littering the battlefield, but if it works it will be a welcome development for the genre.

Total War: Rome II will be available on PC some time in 2013.

Source: MCV [http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/rome-ii-will-be-total-war-s-saving-private-ryan/0100571]

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[TheRightToArmBears]

Land and sea based combat merged into one you say? Time for a new pair of underwear.

 

[bro1667]

that was something i used to do in medieval 2, i used to choose one man in a battle. Then see how long he would last, giving him a story, when he died i felt sad, for 10 secs until a picked another soldier.

The thing CA need to focus on is the AI. Shogun 2 on hard was just them cheating and not them using skill. It was all about holding off a overwhelming force until you could muster an army to be on the offensive.

 

[Artemis923]

I already cared about my nobles in Medieval II.

I adopted a young fighter as England; he was 16 years old and a 2 star general.

He became known as Alexander the Scarred, the greatest military commander in English history.

He died in battle, storming the walls of France's last castle.


'Twas a great victory, but a tragic one. I wonder if Rome II will be this good, or come off as cheesy.

 

[tmande2nd]

Yeah does not really matter.

My strategy is always to send in a wave of mercenaries before my real army.
I dont care who nameless goon #5671282 is.

He is simply a dude, who runs with a bunch of other dudes, to kill some dudes for me.
...dude.

 

[Cowabungaa]

These days when I think "Spielberg-level drama" I think of the second season of Falling Skies. And to anyone not watching Falling Skies, here was my response:

 

[AmrasCalmacil]

Everything in this article makes me happy. Except the Rome part, not really my favourite, I personally want an Early Victorian Total War, something like 1838 to 1856.

I've cared about units in RTS games for a while though, every soldier is vital to my battleplans, I tend to try and minimise losses a lot, the destruction of one of my Armies during the Peninsular Campaign was a spectacle that actually hurt me to watch. It was absolutely spectacular though, I wrote it up to try and emulate the style of historical writing.

 

[Irridium]

Sounds neat. Though I already feel connections with my generals and troops. Ah, the stories that arise...

Of course nothing will top A Scotsman in Egypt [http://lparchive.org/A-Scotsman-In-Egypt/], but it's nice to see that they're trying.

 

[llafnwod]

I'll be more excited when I start hearing things like "proper multithreading" and "no full 3D main menu that takes over a minute and a half to load".

 

[Blunderboy]

Hmmm you want me to care about my Roman troops?

Then include these two somewhere in there.

You will see the most passive game of Total War ever though, as I don't want anything to hurt them.

 

[WouldYouKindly]

The thing with being a commander is that cold conduct often saves lives in the long run. Sending one unit at a tough enemy will usually end with that unit routing and being cut down. Send them all, and everyone will take some hits, but most will come out with less losses than if you had sent them in one at a time.

 

[KorLeonis]

I love the Total War games, and I will absolutely be getting this. But if you had asked me to provide a list of what Rome 2 needed, realistic facial expressions would not have been on there. Don't get me wrong, I love making up stories for my generals, even for specific unit groups that have been around for a long time, but individuals within the unit? Not a chance. Sometimes, when necessary, I will feed an army into a meat grinder if it advances the cause of my nation as a whole. I don't need the game trying to make me feel guilty that Generic Spearman #127984 isn't coming home to his wife and kids.

 

[Zaik]

Seems a little difficult to get attached to your units no matter how human they look, because I'd have 150 who look exactly the same.

 

[Zulnam]

Come on, CA, you're avoiding the subject. Get into World War 1. If there's anyone who can make it work, it's you.

I like the idea of Rome II, but we already had a Rome. You're long due to change the era. WW1 would be an awesome pick.

 

[Blunderboy]

Come on, CA, you're avoiding the subject. Get into World War 1. If there's anyone who can make it work, it's you.

I like the idea of Rome II, but we already had a Rome. You're long due to change the era. WW1 would be an awesome pick.

I'll have to disagree. Consider that generally the least well received Total War games are Empire and Napoleon, which are both closest to that time period. I'm not saying CA couldn't do it, but I'd be really surprised.
This is the last I'm saying on the subject though because it always descends into a vicious circle.

 

[Sean951]

Once you get into trench warfare, total war style games lose the ability to have army v army actions. I could maybe see something like battalion level action for WWII, but that would be pushing it.

I'm just super happy Rome is getting redone. After Shogun 2 and the vast improvements to artillery and ranged in general, playing with my old legions will be a blast.

 

[BrotherSurplice]

Everything in this article makes me happy. Except the Rome part, not really my favourite, I personally want an Early Victorian Total War, something like 1838 to 1856.

I've cared about units in RTS games for a while though, every soldier is vital to my battleplans, I tend to try and minimise losses a lot, the destruction of one of my Armies during the Peninsular Campaign was a spectacle that actually hurt me to watch. It was absolutely spectacular though, I wrote it up to try and emulate the style of historical writing.

I'm definitely in agreement with you on the Victorian Total War part. I've wanted an RTS for the Crimean War for so long ;_;

 

[Sean951]

Everything in this article makes me happy. Except the Rome part, not really my favourite, I personally want an Early Victorian Total War, something like 1838 to 1856.

I've cared about units in RTS games for a while though, every soldier is vital to my battleplans, I tend to try and minimise losses a lot, the destruction of one of my Armies during the Peninsular Campaign was a spectacle that actually hurt me to watch. It was absolutely spectacular though, I wrote it up to try and emulate the style of historical writing.

I'm definitely in agreement with you on the Victorian Total War part. I've wanted an RTS for the Crimean War for so long ;_;

But really, how would they do the Crimean War? That was the era where trenches started to show up, and I really don't think Total War would work for trench warfare.

Captcha: armageddon. Awesome.