Great Interview Joe! Can't wait to see what else you got from E3.

Considering that ninjas, the real ones, were basically civilians who took up arms and eventually used for information gathering and assassinations, I don't think it'd be too far fetched to think they can also either imitate another enemy class to either destroy, cripple, or steal supplies from within. They could even alter the battle grounds, since ninjas were very good at placing traps and hidden supports to aid the rumors about them at the time (like waterwalking...). Of course, I could be totally wrong on that...

Nice interview, though sometimes the mic wasn't in the right place at the right time...

Ninja were a lot more than that...they removed themselves from the mainstream society to create their own. They were elites hired to perform any service relevant to their skills for a price. There are records (which I unfortunately do not have right now, or I'd cite them...) of ninja even being hired to police cities. Ninja hid themselves by having multiple cover families, working their ways into governmental positions, and destroying records. Ninja were also sometimes hired as foot soldiers, with extra tools to gain an advantage.

JOE!!

Bianary!? These guys are the sh!t.

You seriously outdid the big sites here, Joe. These vids were fantastic.

Where's the catchy theme song??

Ohh, it was at the end...

lol

Nice interview. I hadn't heard of this before I saw Spoony's coverage on E3 but you both got me interested in it now.

Space battles would be cool. The only nice space RTS game I've played, though I'm not a huge RTS fan, was Star Wars: Empire at War. The detail and control there impressed me so seeing that on a grander scale would be awesome.

Check out the look on his face when Joe is talking about Total War in space, he's completely horrified

[b][color=red]I believe your wrong. You will be able to focus more on the rock-paper-scissors strategy elements of the units even more than before because each unit will be known to you. no more of this 0.0071% better than this other unit type (none of that really mattered).

Sometimes less is more when done correctly.[/color][/b]

I registered just to say this. Robotech/Macross Total War! Nuff said. You got enough substance in that to make a great Total War game.

I'm already cataloging and saving up for the PC hardware I'll need to make this run on Ultra.

I wonder why they won't release the footage they showed you behind closed doors, was it partially incomplete or are they saving it for when they hit full marketing swing?

i agree empire had alot of faults that napoleon cleaned up, and the battles improved out the wazoo i'm hoping for ww1 and mass slaughter with machine guns. there is so much that can be improved like generals moral, air planes, naval landings chemical warfare, the potential is there they are just going to have to work to the bone of the bone. plus i really enjoyed how in napoleon that the cannon balls actually tear up carters as they bounce

I dunno. I have been a huge fan of the games since the first Medieval Total War, but Empire kind of ruined that I think. The game was so buggy it became nearly unplayable in ways no other current gen pc game has been for me. The frustrating thing is the game got stellar reviews so I cant use review sites to determine whether it's worth buying or not. We'll see if they learn from their mistakes with Shogun or if it ends up being more of the same.

The thing about only 30 types is because Empire Total War has many different cultures, some radically different from each other. France, the Ottoman Empire and the Iroquois Confederacy all share no units together. Shogun Total War 2 is only about Japan, which, even then, was pretty much an homogeneous culture. All the factions will use the same base units, with maybe some unique units for certain factions. So that explains the smaller number of unit types.

As to ninjas, they weren't really warriors, they were scouts, spies and assassins. An armored samurai would just rip through ninjas in a fair fight, which is why ninjas avoided these at any cost. They may be small scout units on a battlefield, but in a large battle their usefulness is limited.

As to Angry Joe's idea... there have been a few like that. Homeworld for instance, or strategy games in recent years have generally incorporated some starship battles. However, the Total War engine would be totally overwhelmed at dealing with space battles. It was made to simulate guys with swords and bows fighting on a 2D battlefield. Hell, naval battles had to wait a decade before they were implemented. A 3D battle with continually moving space ships would require, I think, a different system altogether. I don't think Creative Assembly will go there, it would be going into a completely new direction while not exploiting the team's expertise on ancient warfare simulations.

Plus, if Creative Assembly wants to be realistic, then the battles would suck, ships at thousands of kilometers of each other, going at hundreds of km/h relative to each other and firing at ships they can't see, then overheating and having to leave the battle since heat doesn't dissipate in space. Add FTL travel and probably that the least powerful side would just leave before the battle begins. Mass Effect actually describes realistic space battles in the game encyclopaedia, if there is nothing important to defend, the ships would just fire a few shots, then break off contact. The only way to have cool space battles is to adopt completely unrealistic space opera rules.

Also having less unit types makes sense, since the game seems to have a smaller scale. From what I understand the game takes place strictly in Japan whereas the other TW games encompass all of Europe and the Mediterranean. There probably wouldnt be a huge difference in unit types within one country whereas the larger scale of the previous games involved many different cultures with different style armies.

HAHAHA "That guy works for SEGA" BURRRRRNNN!!! XD

Land and Sea combo battles.

Just like the promised for Empire.

Naval Invasion at day 1.
The Promised it for Rome (came with patch and never quite worked in Vanilla.

The Promised it for Medieval II (came with patch and never quite worked in Vanilla.

The Promised it for Empire (came with patch and never quite worked in Vanilla.

The Promised it for Napoleon (came with Day One) and never quite worked in Vanilla.

To belive them is almost the thame as beliving Besheda. It's the hope that they dont go the 10% truth 90 lie% route anymore.

The biniry thing does mean only thing.
Fuck the modders. The fucked the Modders a litte with Empire. The promised good Mod support. And then bombed it. Napolien the same.

For DLC they got big bucks. DLC that's not very good.

I was also among the crowd who hadn't heard of Shogun 2 until you and Spoony talked about it Joe. However, you both got me rather interested. While I probably won't be able to get it because I could never afford a computer that would be good enough, I'm definitely going to find out a lot about it.

Here's hoping the game will be really cool. :)

Finaly Total War game since first Shogun that intrests me. I have not played Total War games that game after it but this one is must buy to me.

dude you are missing out Rome and Medieval total war were freaking amazing games. you are definitely missing out on fantastic games if you haven't playyed them.

True ninjas were spies not some super human assassins. If they put ninjas on combat field they are just fucking up things.

Great interview otherwise and i'm gratefull that you didint try to dress up like Samurai otherwise we would have had you make seppuku :cheer:

Samurai Joe looks pretty bad ass.

cool review and space ships...nice idea maibe i will stealth it jajajaja no just kiddin i would also like a fantasy total war game too you know like whit dragons and magicians that would be nice too however is just an idea well nice review as always angry joe

I find it hard to beleive they coded the entire game in Binary.. you make operating systems in Binary... making games in Binary seems like unnecessarily complicating the work that needs to be done.

to put it simply, coding in scripts and programming language could look like this:

if (enemysighted = true)
{
target(enemy);
}

where as binary will look more like
1000110 01000110 01110100 10000011 11010101 1000110

Of course they didn't code it in binary. But everything you programm can be translated to binary (and it is whenever you run the programm) so maybe they programmed the game and precompiled it to binary so that the process of compiling data when running the game is out of the way and making it run faster this way.

Anyway... Heroes are no One-Man-Armies? Damn and here I was hoping for "Total War" meets "Dynasty Warriors" that'd be awesome.

It's ok though for a Total War game.

Being a hardcore fan of the total war series, my only ever problem was the AI tactics. Empire wasn't to bad, napoleon fixed kind of but i'm hoping that the really did fix here.

PS ( Graphics aren't that important in the total war series. Rome total is the most loved total war game and empire had way better graphics.

Can't wait for this game! :woohoo:

I'm a little new to the whole rts genre, only played star wars empire at war and halo wars, but I might take a look at this title.

Also, just wondering Joe, will you do a review of Transformers War for Cybertron?

Sound like a great game. I'm not sure but ninjas on the battlefield might not work the way you may be thinking, Joe. I get the feeling that if a ninja is already in the area that a battle will take place, then you might get some kind of bonus view of the battlefield or something.

Historicaly speaking, the last place you'd see a ninja is in the middle of a large battle. You'd be more likely to see one after the battle shadowing the enemy army until they camp, then sneaking in and assasinating a key general. Maybe if the enemy is in retreat, having an available ninja gives you a better chance of killing the retreating general.

By the way, your space opera idea won't work with this type of game.

Alert everyone! We're getting flanked by the katana person units!!! :silly:

No but seriously, you are ace Joe, and as many already said or hinted, you've got much more insight than the so called top sites.

Good review, I'm actually looking forward to S2: TW. But I want to get one thing straight with you, Joe.

S2: TW is [b]not[/b] the "redeemer" game of Creative Assembly. It is not where they "get back into the game". The redemption of CA has already been established: Napoleon: Total War.

If you have not played N: TW, then you can not judge it. It is everything that Empire [b]should[/b] have been and more.

No, Creative Assembly has regained my respect they lost at Napoleon: Total Beta-oh sorry, Empire: Total war.