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Linus Tech tips coverage of PS 2013 is brought to you by Western Digital Intel

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and steel Series so we're here with Al bickham Studio Communications manager at

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creative assembly and they're finally

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showing off Rome Total War I why did you

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make Rome Total War to I mean there's so many other things you guys could have done you could have done like uh you

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know ants Total War or like uh you know robots Total War aliens Total War why

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are you revisiting Rome no but I now you said I'm wishing we' done robots cuz

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that sounds brilliant um no uh so so the time is right really uh it's a it's a

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period we've always wanted to revisit uh the technology we have now

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you know the the warscape engine has developed quite significantly you know

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the original Rome was like nine years ago now so the the technology we have

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now we can just do we can do that period greater Justice we can look at things in

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Greater detail we can do it with a greater scale and we can just do a

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better job of it now and it's something we've always wanted to return to but also it's something that our fan bases

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always wanted to return to as well so you know total war players for the last

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five plus years have kind of been going oh I hope it's Rome two next I hope it's

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Ro two next so it's I think the time is right to do it so you talk about being

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able to do it better Justice I mean um you know the battlefield battles

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themselves the mechanics of them they weren't fundamentally broken in in Rome

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Total War in any way so what is it that the better technology allows you to

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really do diff differently how is it grander and better and so you know in

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terms of in terms of the graphics technology and the processing technology

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we have available to us now it we can we can just represent that world in in

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Greater Fidelity uh in Greater detail and and and and with a greater sense of

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atmosphere as well I mean if you if you try if you try playing battles in

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different parts of the world in Rome 2 you'll get this real sense of location

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you know we've got greater elevation in the landscape uh we've got you know very

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very different uh lighting models for different parts of the world very very

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different weather systems um and and this just creates a greater

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sense of atmosphere you know um and I think you know as well as well as the

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greatest technology the growth of the studio and you know in terms of the

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talent that we have in in house just means you know we can we we can just do

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things better and we can do more of it you know the the music that we in the

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game you know is is is we've recorded it with a with a complete Symphony

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Orchestra and you can really hear the difference you know back in Rome it was

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kind of midi it was computer made music really so you know now we've got this

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tremendous sweeping orchestral score uh

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and we've we've we've you know we we've sort of suffused that with ethnic

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musicians who've come in and played these ancient instruments for us and

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they they whether you've where you're aware of what the instrument even is

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when you hear it you kind of go yeah that sounds really Greek or that sounds really kind of African you know so you

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know Rome was a melting part of cultures and you know so we want to reflect that

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as well in the in the um you know in the music and the atmosphere of the game so

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so yeah it's it enables us to do all SS yeah so one of the big problems with u

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not just Rome Total War but you look back at any of the games that are sort

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of well older at this point you know like the earlier Civilization games or

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whatever else a huge part of that game

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needs to be diplomacy but yet there was so little insight into how the AI worked

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and the AI was just seemed very

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two-dimensional um back back in that era what have you guys done this time around

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so there two there's two real key changes to diplomacy because um excuse

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me um so when you're dealing with AI factions on the campaign map you know

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you want to make alliances or or you know declare war and all that kind of

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stuff so this is you know this this idea

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of of transparency into the AI decision- making process something

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we've really tackled head on with Rome too so we have a new uh part of the UI

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which gives it shows you a list uh of all your past actions by which that

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particular faction is judging you right so if you've uh conducted Wars against

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his friends he will like you less and you know we've got plus and minus points

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you know we give you a kind of balanced rating of of how how how much that AI

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really likes you and therefore how How likely it is to you know to want to

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conduct constructive diplomacy with you rather than say attack you um and you

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know I think we've all been in a situation in a total war game in the past where where an AI faction has

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attacked us and we don't really know why uh and now now we can show you that you

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know there's usually in the past there's usually been a reason for it I mean part

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of it is of course some AIS are more aggressive than others and will want to

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attack other factions to conquer their lands because they're a warlike Nation

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you know so but part of it also is that you know you've you've uh gone out into

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the world and you've made an impact and that's made some people happy and some

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people unhappy right now we show you why so so yeah I mean you know I think I

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think people will find it a lot more natural a lot more intuitive and uh you

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know a lot more enjoyable to play with so you've got a bunch of gaming stations

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it looks like about 10 stations back here and this has been absolutely full

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every single station the entire show what are they doing back there what game

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mode is it and how are people enjoying it so we've got two of the historical

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battles from the game we've got the battle of the Nile which is uh a giant

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combined land and sea Battle where we've got uh we give the player navies with

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troops on and artillery weapons so they can go to vcom you know battle with the

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Egyptian Fleet or they can disembark their troops onto the land to support

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the main attack which is your Roman army heading up the hill to try and conquer

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the the army of Tommy the 13th so you know it's a it's a kind of classic

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historical battle from history um but it's it's a real mixture of of loads of

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the kind of uh new elements that we've

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got in battles in Rome too and and of course it's a lovely great big giant

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scale battle as well which is really good fun um and the other battle that which we've got playable here is the the

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Battle of tberg forest which is um which was a

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it was the battle it was in 9 ad it was the battle the that that proved to the

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Romans that they weren't the masters of all Warfare Rome got its nose blooded

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really badly it lost three Legions in the most carefully orchestrated Ambush

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uh and was betrayed you know was betrayed by one of its own officers you know the guy called armenius betrayed uh

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his his own side because he was German by descent and in Germania he he he saw

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how his his Kinsman Old Kinsman had uh

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been treated by the Roman settlers the Roman Invaders you know that by the um

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you know by the local forces so he he rallied the Germanic Barbarian tribes

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into an effective fighting force so we've been giving out prizes for people

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who uh who beat it on normal and we've had I think seven or eight people over

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the course of the show beat it on normal and we've probably

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had more than 1500 people paying it so

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you know it's like you can play on easy it's a lot easy obviously on normal it's

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tough on hard it's very very very hard so it's one of those cool battles that

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you can just play and then you can go oh okay okay I'm going to try that again a

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different way rearrange your Force at the start to defend from the rear maybe

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and move your stuff forward and maybe I'll try that and so it's a good kind of

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repeat play Battle not really nice challenge basically so and both these

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battles show off you know our new battle engine the the the the huge Fidelity and

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the and the soldiers we've got in the game and uh and that the sort of that as

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I mentioned that sense of atmosphere and that sense of Greater elevation which

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creates a kind of visual dynamism you know this is this is an aspect of both these battles so all right well that

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sounds extremely exciting thank you very much for taking the time yeah it's my

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pleasure guys don't forget our coverage here at the show is powered by Western

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Digital Intel and steel Series so a huge thanks to those guys for allowing us to

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be here