Gadgetory

Linus tech tips coverage of Pax 2013 is brought to you by Western Digital Intel and SteelSeries silver here with Al Beckham studio communications manager at Creative Assembly and that they're finally showing off rome total war two why did you make rome total war 2 I mean there's so many other things you guys could have done you could have done like you know ants total war or like you know robots total or aliens total war why are you revisiting Rome now you said I wish think we done robot so he looks that sounds brilliant no so so the time is right really it's a it's a period we've always wanted to revisit the technology we have now you know the war scape engine is developed it's quite significantly you know the original drone was like nine years ago now so the technology we have now we could just do we can do that period greater justice we can look at things in greater detail we can deal with greater scale and then we could just do a better job of it now and it's something we've always wanted to return to but also it's something that our fan base is always want to return to as well so you know total war players for the last five plus years have kind of been going oh I hope it's Rome 2 next they hope is ro 2 next so it's I think the time is right to do it so you talk about being able to do it better justice I mean you know that the battlefield battles themselves the mechanics of them they weren't fundamentally broken in in rome total war in any way so what is it that the better technology allows you to really do differently how is it grander and better and so you know in terms of in terms of the graphics technology and the processing technology we have available to us now it we can we can just represent that world in in greater fidelity in greater detail and and with a greater sense of atmosphere as well I mean if you tries if you try playing battles in different parts of the world in Rome to you'll get this real sense of location you know we've got greater elevation in the landscape we've got you know very very different lighting models for different parts of the world very very different weather systems and and this just creates a greater sense of atmosphere you know and I think you know as well as well as the greater technologies the growth of the studio and you know in terms of the talents that we have in in-house just means you know we can we could just do things better we could do more of it you know the the music that we in the game you know is is is we've recorded it with a with a complete Symphony Orchestra and you can really hear the difference you know back in Rome where it was kind of MIDI it was all computer made music really so you know now we've got this tremendous sweeping orchestral score and we've we've we've you know we've sort of suffused that with ethnic musicians and you've come in and played these ancient instruments for us and they they whether you've when you're aware of what the instrument even is when you hear it you kind of go yeah that sounds really Greek oh that sounds really kind of Africa you know so you know Rome was a melting pot of cultures and you know so we want to reflect that as well in the you know in the music and the atmosphere of the game so so yeah it's a labels us to do so so yeah so one of the big problems were thought and not just rome total war but you look back at any of the games that are well older at this point you know like earlier civilization games or whatever else a huge part of that game needs to be diplomacy but yet there was so little insight into how the AI worked and the AI was just seemed very two-dimensional back back in that era what did you guys done this time around so there's two real key changes to diplomacy because excuse me so when you're dealing with AI factions on the campaign map you know you want to make alliances or you know declare war and all that kind of stuff so this is you know there's this idea of transparency into the AIS decision-making process something we've already tackled head-on with Rome too so we have a new part of the UI which gives it shows you a list of all your past actions by which that particular faction is judging you right so if you've conducted wars against his friends he will like you less and you know we've got plus and minus points you know we give you a kind of balanced rating of of how how how much that AI really likes you and therefore how likely is you know ii wanna conduct constructive diplomacy with you rather than say attack you and you know i think we've all been in a situation a total war game in the past where we're an AI faction has attacked us and we don't really know why and now now we can show you that you know there's usually in the past there's usually been a reason for it i mean part of it is of course some a eyes are more aggressive than others and will want to attack other factions to conquer their lands because they are a warlike nation you know so but part of it also is that you know you've you've gone out into the world and you've made an impact and that's made some people happy and some people unhappy right now we show you why so so yeah i mean you know i think i think people find it a lot more natural a lot more intuitive and you know a lot more enjoyable to play with so you've got a bunch of gaming stations it looks like about ten stations back here and this has been absolutely full every single station the entire show what are they doing back there what game mode is it and how are people enjoying it so we've got to the historical battles and from the game we've got the Battle of the Nile which is a giant combined land and sea battle where we've got we get to play at navies with troops on and artillery weapons so they could go to enable come you know battle with the Egyptian fleet or they can disembark their troops onto the land to support the main attack which is your Roman army heading up the hill to try and conquer the the army of Ptolemy the thirteenth so you know it's a it's a kind of classic historical battle from history but it's it's a real mixture of loads of the kind of new elements that we've got in battles in Rome too and and of course it's a lovely great big giant scale battle as well which is really good fun and the other battle at which we've got playable here is the battle Teutoburg forest which is which was a it was the battle there was a nine ad was the battle that that proved to the Romans that they were the masters of all warfare Rome got his nose bloody really badly it lost three legions in the most carefully orchestrated ambush and was betrayed no is portrayed by one of its own officers you know the guy called Arminius betrayed his his own side because he was German by descent and in Germania he he said he saw how his his kinsmen his old kinsmen had been treated by the Roman settlers the Roman invaders you know that by the you know by the local forces so he rallied the Germanic barbarians ribes into an effective fighting force so we've been giving out prizes from people who who beat it on normal and we've had I think seven or eight people over the course of the show beat it on normal and we've probably had more than 1500 people playing it so you know it's like you can play on easy it's a lot easier obviously on normal it's tough on hard it's very very very hard so it's one of those cool battles that you can just play and then you can go ah okay okay I'm going to try that again a different way rearrange your force at the start to defend from the rear maybe and move your stuff forward and maybe I'll try that so it's a good kind of repeat play battle not really nice challenge basically so I both these battles show off you know our new battle engine the the huge Villa della T and the soldiers we've got in the game and and that that's sort of that as I mentioned that sense of atmosphere and that sense of debt greater elevation which creates a kind of visual dynamism you know this is this is an aspect of both these battles so alright well that sounds extremely exciting thank you very much for taking the time guys don't forget our coverage here at the show is powered by Western Digital Intel and steel series so huge thanks to those guys for allowing us to be here