Total War Attila Agents Music and more GameOverCast Interview

Hey what's up guys this is Oakley and we're gonna be doing some new information on Total War Attila. This is gonna be brought to you by Game Overcast episode 192. So if you remember a video or two ago I told you to go to the forums, there was a group that was asking for community questions so they could take it to CA in an interview and they did just that. So if you want the direct information, the direct source, the direct audio for what I'm about to tell you, go ahead and check the link below. I think it's more substantive because you get the whole breadth of the interview. In here I'm just gonna go ahead and recap it. The nice thing about these guys who did the interview is they've played a lot of Rome 2 so they know the ins and outs of it and then they went for the most poignant questions, the most important questions I would think. So right from the get-go they basically went straight at what is this game gonna cost, what are you supposed to expect in its scope and scale. Now CA refused to say what the cost was, however they keep emphasizing that it is a stand-alone game. It does seem, however, from how the interview continues on and what we've seen so far, that the game will not be full price just because a lot of things that will be mentioned down the line in this video, but it seems like the game will be most likely at a half price or reduced price of Rome 2 and it's a stand-alone but it's kind of almost like what Napoleon did to Empire. Anyways, moving on, they then ask questions about the audio so it turns out that there will be new voice scripts redone for everything and that there will be new dialogue and the soundtrack will be completely reworked but again it'll be by Richard Beddow so hopefully he can make a more impactful performance of the audio. I did like Rome 2's music but it really didn't have the pounding drums, the thematic feel of Rome 1 and I think if they're gonna strike that apocalyptic feel, Richard is really gonna have to strike that tone very precisely but from what we've seen from samples in the trailers, it does seem like he does have it in him so wait to hear more on that. Now in terms of Rome 2 support, these guys, Game Overcast, are great. They just kept hammering at this. They knew what the fans wanted to know, namely, is Rome 2 gonna be abandoned? So they started talking about, you know, how does this new game relate to Rome 2? So first, CIA responded saying, well first, in this map you're gonna see an expanded map of Rome 2 so, you know, they're trying to say we're giving you more in that sense, there's gonna be the same number or comparable factions, same number as in Rome 2 so they're trying to say, you know, everything in Rome 2 is gonna be here basically and that we're gonna rework it and then the Game Overcast keep pressing, you know, but what are we gonna see backwards in Rome 2? And CIA sort of keeps having this reserved response where they say we will continue to support Rome 2 and then they say they will do whatever they can to implement new features into Rome 2 as far as it's feasible. So the wording, you'll have to listen to the specific audio, but the way they say it is relatively unconvincing and I don't want to parse, you know, the tone of conversations, but what it seems is that they're not gonna have huge sweeping changes back to Rome 2, they're gonna continue to support it and they're gonna continue to have relatively easy changes, but does that mean, you know, I would assume the layout of the UI would be easy to change so, you know, maybe they'll change that, but no confirmation, go ahead and listen to the tone of that interview and make, draw your own conclusions, there's not enough I would say to conclude anything thus far, it's mostly just public relations talk is what they're doing to us. Next they go ahead and ask the questions about the desolation feature, so as you guys know, there's a new option to do to your city, so basically if you see an attacker coming towards your city and you don't think you can defend it, but you don't want the attacker to take that city, you can actually have the option to abandon your city, once you do that the next turn, the city will, well you move your army out and then the city will basically burn, the surrounding territory will also burn and so that whole region will become a desolate wilderness, fertility will be down, you can't replenish your units in there and if you want to start a new city, you're gonna have to start from scratch, now the new bit of information, apparently if you want to start that new city, you have to do so with an army, so there's gonna be an army that's gonna come colonize it and once you do the option to recolonize, apparently half of that army just disappears and becomes the colonists, that's a very interesting feature, I'd be interested to see why they went that route, but in any case, when you do bring that army and half of it becomes colonists, it's gonna cost a large amount of money, so if you come in there with a small army, like 3-4 units, two units will become the colony and it'll be a lot of money, but if you come with like 10 units and 5 of them become the colony, it'll be less of a money investment, but then again you are investing troops, so can you just send levies over there, that's something we'll have to see, but it sort of makes sense in terms of how there were many cities actually in the Roman era who were actually made out of veteran colonies, so after legions had served, the general would go ahead and give them a plot of land somewhere, so maybe that's sort of what they're trying to do with the army that comes in and disbands in that area. Then moving on, they're gonna talk about the civilians inside a city and I'm gonna pair this with some other information we got from another source on sieges, so siege escalation, the way it works is there's 3 levels, the first level which is kinda level 0 is pristine city, when you attack it, basically all the walls are intact and what you'll be seeing on the battlefield map are gonna be civilians, these civilians are not gonna be controlled by the defender or the attacker, they're just there, they're kinda like the wildlife we see on maps in Rome 2, and what they will do is when you get close to them as an attacker they'll either run or attack you, and there's no way to control this, it's not based on your general or any other abilities, it's just completely random, so if they attack you they will do so in groups of 3 or 4 and maybe if you get into a clump of civilians they'll all start turning on the attackers, so I'm not sure how much damage they can do but it'll be an interesting mechanic, also for immersion it'll be kinda sweet. Now if they flee they will probably flee either off the map or they'll flee into buildings, if you burn down those buildings the civilians will actually run out and evacuate it and go to seek other cover, so it's cool little details like that, I don't think they'll be super impactful in the game, but it's a nice sense of immersion again. Now, level 1, so after the pristine level is level 1, this'll be after you've sieged the city for maybe, I don't know, 1 or 2, 3, 4 turns, and it'll be initial damage, holes will start to appear, the city will start to get a little bit worked down, and then level 2 is basically the highest level of damage, where the city is close to ruin, fires are present, the wall is broken down, and the settlement damage meter and debuff will really start to be present as you burn the city down further and further. And I will mention, actually, as I didn't mention in the beginning, the turns per year for this game is gonna be 4 turns per year, so that's good to see a comeback to that, and mostly because the time frame for this game is gonna be 75 years. Now moving on to the next question they asked was, you know, what are we to expect from agents? So the agents, CA responded, are gonna be similar to Rome 2, there's gonna be 3 main types, the warrior type, the spy type, and then the new one is gonna be priests, so priests are kind of the equivalent of the dignitary, and the priests sort of pair up with how religion works. They said that the religion will, as you saw on a previous screen that I showed you, religion will kind of be like culture, it'll be spread out, there's lots of different religions that you can have some control over, and it works sort of like culture where it spreads in different areas and your priests can propagate one religion over another. Now what influence do you have over the religion? Well, you can do, you know, send your agent here or there and he can try and promote more religious stuff in a certain area. Once an area becomes more tense towards one religion or the other, you can then do religious-specific edicts, so different religions will have different abilities that are provided to them in edicts, so that's a little bit of incentive to choose one religion or another. I'm sure, you know, having more of one religion and then half of the other will cause internal conflict, so apparently, you know, it's gonna function like that, but there won't be, it seems like it's gonna be more a behind-the-scenes feature, sort of a low-level cultural feature that's all calculated in the back. It's not quite as upfront in your face as Medieval 2 was where, you know, the Pope and the Papacy would give you orders and you'd have to follow them and then you have all the different factions ranking with the Pope in status. It's not going to be quite that upfront. It's going to be somewhere between there and Rome 2's culture. However, they did say you do have a little bit more control over the religious direction, so for instance, you can have some influence on religious matters. I think they mentioned something about the Council of Nicaea, but you can sort of help promote different religious leaders and try and make certain religions go up quicker and others subside more, and apparently, you can even go, as Rome, go back to the old ways of worshipping the Roman or Greek gods, which I think is pretty cool, and then the agents themselves, the game overcast tried to ask, you the other agents, spies, and warriors, it seems like, I mean, I may be wrong, but it seems like it's basically the same as Rome 2 with maybe, yeah, they'll have a couple different features, but the main difference is just the way that you rank them up. It's a skill tree as opposed to the way we saw in Rome 2, so the skill tree, I mean, it's the same feature with just a different presentation. I mean, it looks nicer, but it's basically the same thing. Like, I don't know, we'll have to wait to see for more information, and I'm looking on the other side of my notes. Yeah, okay, so on the next part, we're going to talk about the Huns and the campaign on the larger level. So, it's going to be about a 75-year campaign with four turns per year, so that's going to make for about 300 turns. That's about the length of a total war game, and then if we're going to talk about the Huns, so as I said before, they're unplayable. The CA wants them to be sort of like a boss that can help balance out the late game, and if you look at this, the hordes will actually be present from the beginning, and they'll be more belligerent once Attila comes along. Now, the Gamer Overcast asked a really good question. Is Attila going to be scripted? So, in a previous video, I'd mentioned they would probably work like the Mongols or the Timurids in Medieval 2, which were scripted to come in a certain period of time. So, you actually said that they're not going to be scripted, so that's very interesting. I'm wondering why that's the case. I guess they want it to be more sandbox-y, but I'm wondering how they will, you know, force this presence on you. Like, what if they're scripted, and what if they get taken out early in the game, or what if they decide to just be too passive? So, that's what Gamer Overcast asked, and so in response, CA says they've done certain things to make the Huns almost, not almost unbeatable, but pretty hard to defeat in the beginning. They're going to be more aggressive than other factions, and they're going to be persistent and hard to deal with, so it looks like they're going to be paying special attention to the Huns, not making them scripted, so this world becomes, you know, it's not super repetitive. It'll be more of a sandbox feature, but maybe the Huns will attack in one direction in one game, another direction in another, which is good to see, as long as they make them, you know, still attack you, it'd be, it would suck if they would just be a huge horde that never attacks you. So, hopefully they can strike the balance just right. And then, another thing about the AI aggression. So, CA has said that, you know, there will be some passive factions, just like in Rome 2, but a lot of factions will be more aggressive to hopefully push the pressure on your empire. And then also, they said the behavior of each faction depends on its leader, so that's going to be different from what we've seen before, and so you'll maybe want to assassinate a particular leader if he's too aggressive, and they said once the new leader comes up, that new leader will have new traits that'll influence what's happening. So, maybe it could be the other way around. You have cordial relations with one faction, and then all of a sudden that leader dies, his son comes up, and he really hates you, and all of a sudden your diplomacy changes with them. So, Gamer Overcast asked a follow-up question that was very good. They say, okay, that's a cool feature, but how can you plan for this? Is there a way to like spy on a faction and figure out who the runner-up heir is, and what his characteristics are? You know, should you be able to start planning or have that in the back of your mind? And it seems like CA said, no, you will only know the characteristics of whoever's in command. Now, I think that's a little problematic, because for people who aren't paying, very close attention to this feature, it'll seem like out of the blue your relations are just changing. It'll be kind of weird. So, hopefully it'll be worked out, those details. I hope they give us some sort of indication for what to expect. You know, this leader is going to die soon, and here's maybe the general tendencies of his heir. That'd be very interesting to know. And then, they talk a little bit about disease, how it travels with the armies, and trade, and how it can destroy your armies and do attrition to them. And then, Gamer Overcast asked about the navies. They say, what can we expect that's different with the navies? CA said the armies still can become transports and travel over water. However, they've been making changes to make these less effective. And they say they're working more on improving naval battles. However, CA did not add much to this. They say there'll be more information on this to come. So, I guess we'll have to wait and see. And then, basically, one of the final questions that I wanted to deal with at the end is they asked, Gamer Overcast did, what we can expect from Rome 2 multiplayer in terms of developments and new stuff. Are we going to see anything from Shogun 2, the Avatar Conquest, and whatnot? And from all the interviews I've heard, CA has really, really dodged this question. They've basically said, oh, you know, well, yes, yes, we'll have new stuff. We'll have the features from the new Total War Attila, all that. You'll be getting that in multiplayer. So, that basically means that you'll get fire propagation in multiplayer, and you'll get these new barricades in Siege in multiplayer. I wouldn't consider that a new multiplayer feature. It's just something that's carried over. I don't know. It seems like basically what they're saying is don't expect much from multiplayer, which I think is disappointing. But it goes back to the initial thing that I said where if they're not changing the multiplayer much, if the agents aren't changed much, if the battles aren't changed that much. I mean, I know CA, yes, you are changing a lot of things, but it's mostly UI features and little features here and there. It's not really an overhaul. I think that lends credence to the idea that this will be a half-price game and not really a full title as if they were to do, I don't know, Warring China. That would be a full title. This is more of like a Napoleon to your empire. Any case, go ahead and check out the Gamer Overcast interview directly. They have all this information. I hope I could just synthesize it and make it a little more succinct. Anyways, see you guys in the next video. Thanks so much.