Linus Tech tips coverage of PS 2013 is brought to you by Western Digital Intel
and steel Series so we're here with Al bickham Studio Communications manager at
creative assembly and they're finally
showing off Rome Total War I why did you
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
know ants Total War or like uh you know robots Total War aliens Total War why
are you revisiting Rome no but I now you said I'm wishing we' done robots cuz
that sounds brilliant um no uh so so the time is right really uh it's a it's a
period we've always wanted to revisit uh the technology we have now
you know the the warscape engine has developed quite significantly you know
the original Rome was like nine years ago now so the the technology we have
now we can just do we can do that period greater Justice we can look at things in
Greater detail we can do it with a greater scale and we can 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 bases
always wanted 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 two next I hope it's
Ro two 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 um you know 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 diff 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 uh in Greater detail and and and and with a greater sense of
atmosphere as well I mean if you if you try if you try playing battles in
different parts of the world in Rome 2 you'll get this real sense of location
you know we've got greater elevation in the landscape uh we've got you know very
very different uh lighting models for different parts of the world very very
different weather systems um and and this just creates a greater
sense of atmosphere you know um and I think you know as well as well as the
greatest technology the growth of the studio and you know in terms of the
talent that we have in in house just means you know we can we we can just do
things better and we can 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 it was
kind of midi it was computer made music really so you know now we've got this
tremendous sweeping orchestral score uh
and we've we've we've you know we we've sort of suffused that with ethnic
musicians who've come in and played these ancient instruments for us and
they they whether you've where you're aware of what the instrument even is
when you hear it you kind of go yeah that sounds really Greek or that sounds really kind of African you know so you
know Rome was a melting part of cultures and you know so we want to reflect that
as well in the in the um you know in the music and the atmosphere of the game so
so yeah it's it enables us to do all SS yeah so one of the big problems with u
not just Rome Total War but you look back at any of the games that are sort
of well older at this point you know like the 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 um back back in that era what have you guys done this time around
so there two there's two real key changes to diplomacy because um excuse
me um so when you're dealing with AI factions on the campaign map you know
you want to make alliances or or you know declare war and all that kind of
stuff so this is you know this this idea
of of transparency into the AI decision- making process something
we've really tackled head on with Rome too so we have a new uh part of the UI
which gives it shows you a list uh of all your past actions by which that
particular faction is judging you right so if you've uh 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 How likely it is to you know to want to
conduct constructive diplomacy with you rather than say attack you um and you
know I think we've all been in a situation in a total war game in the past where where an AI faction has
attacked us and we don't really know why uh 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 AIS are more aggressive than others and will want to
attack other factions to conquer their lands because they're a warlike Nation
you know so but part of it also is that you know you've you've uh 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 will find it a lot more natural a lot more intuitive and uh you
know a lot more enjoyable to play with so you've got a bunch of gaming stations
it looks like about 10 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 two of the historical
battles from the game we've got the battle of the Nile which is uh a giant
combined land and sea Battle where we've got uh we give the player navies with
troops on and artillery weapons so they can go to vcom 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 Tommy the 13th so you know it's a it's a kind of classic
historical battle from history um but it's it's a real mixture of of loads of
the kind of uh 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 um and the other battle that which we've got playable here is the the
Battle of tberg forest which is um which was a
it was the battle it was in 9 ad it was the battle the that that proved to the
Romans that they weren't the masters of all Warfare Rome got its nose blooded
really badly it lost three Legions in the most carefully orchestrated Ambush
uh and was betrayed you know was betrayed by one of its own officers you know the guy called armenius betrayed uh
his his own side because he was German by descent and in Germania he he he saw
how his his Kinsman Old Kinsman had uh
been treated by the Roman settlers the Roman Invaders you know that by the um
you know by the local forces so he he rallied the Germanic Barbarian tribes
into an effective fighting force so we've been giving out prizes for people
who uh 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 paying it so
you know it's like you can play on easy it's a lot easy 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 oh 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 and so it's a good kind of
repeat play Battle not really nice challenge basically so and both these
battles show off you know our new battle engine the the the the huge Fidelity and
the and the soldiers we've got in the game and uh and that the sort of that as
I mentioned that sense of atmosphere and that sense of Greater elevation which
creates a kind of visual dynamism you know this is this is an aspect of both these battles so all right well that
sounds extremely exciting thank you very much for taking the time yeah it's my
pleasure guys don't forget our coverage here at the show is powered by Western
Digital Intel and steel Series so a huge thanks to those guys for allowing us to
be here