Do you guys think they will go the "mysteriously self-operating ships" route, or actually animate ships or catapults, ballistae etc. with a full complement of merry seamen, who perhaps could be maimed, impairing the function of said ship/catapult/ballista.


If we judge based upon the E3 trailer, it will be the former. Is there any value in going the other way?

The latter, while likely adding a lot to the performance needs, does add a lot to looks. I like the latter.

If the ships are controlled by a crew that would make my day at least.

TBH I don't think it's worth the performance. Self operating ships are cool too, and IMO it's fina doesn't really matter that much.

Mysteriously self-operating ships made sense in the days of my youth.. But with modern CPU and GPU power, little crews are certainly an option. Other games have been adding more and more little animations to their units as part of a general increase in production value. Rise of Legends had little people and animations attached to its 'cities'. SupCom2 has a lot of gratuitous animations on its structures.

Those things can be nice if they can fit them in. Like every other graphical bit of 'eye candy', they'd just need to include a setting that could turn it off so the slower PCs can still play the game.

Otoh, I think the ship's size scaling might be funny (i.e., heavily compressed), so it might be hard to put people on it without drawing attention to this issue. If the crew of the ship needs to be 1/4 the size of a knight to look right on the ship then it won't look right.. Maybe they could compromise by putting a single mage on the deck somewhere, waving his arms and steering. This would imply that it has some magical control elements and excuse away the need for a bigger crew.

If they decide to go with the mage thing i'd much rather just want them to skip it all together TBH.

MRP, I don't think they will have scaling problems. I think, at least where SC was concerned, Chris prided himself on the realistic scaling of the units. I can't really remember the scaling from the E trois trailer... I would like it if they did it. There was one other game that had it, and it worked well, but I can't remember which.

I wouldn't mind a mage animation at all. I completely love all the little animations they have in Supcom2, like factory movement and build layouts, just as I loved in in BfME. Granted it's secondary, but eye candy is eye candy. It's awesome sauce.

I know they will have siege vehicles, so having those moved and operated by 2 guys would be really neat too. Remember AoE2 Catapults?

We've seen that they can do it, both with the C-rex, and with the dragon they displayed in the latest video. I say if they can do it, do it.

If they're gonna have animation for boats and catapults it should be done good, and not some half assed animation with a mage that stears a whole boat by himself, I'm all for having good animation, but do it good then.

Who says a mage steering a boat has to be half-assed? That mage could be totally epic, with carefully rendered robes that flow about him as he pirouettes across the deck and climbs up the rigging to adjust the sails.. He might even have a pirate monkey. ..then he'd be a pirate mage... There's nothing half-assed about pirate magi.

ooo...ooo.. they could give him a peg leg that he detaches and uses as his staff when casting major AoE attack spells.

What if the ships (once loaded) had your military units walking on it? If lets say you had some archers on a boat they would walk around on deck and add to the attack of the ship by shooting arrows

Ghetto Gunships for K&C?

That sounds awesome.

I would like to see a variation on this. It doesn't need to be as complex or have quite the same number of units as you might see on a Ship of the Line in Empire or Napoleon: Total War; but perhaps something like Rise and Fall: Civilizations at War? Without making the ships traveling unit factories...

Units that are traveling by sea (in the hold or just below deck) don't need to be rendered on deck; but a compliment of the ships crew would be nice. Perhaps manning the cannons (such as the ones we have seen on the airships) and having boarding actions? Though at the moment the game seems to have an emphasis on infantry combat so maybe this would deviate from the primary emphasis of gameplay. Though CT did mention there would be navies in the game so unless they do something fun with them they'll just end up like navies in every other game.

"GhettoGunships" are actually a great use for navy.

They allow expansion of ground force to the water, require a significant investment to do, and dont automaticaly mean a loss if the water is lost, just a disadvantage.

dont really care tbh. If it helps performance, leave them out.

What im saying, is that there should only be variations of navy with regard to health, and speed.

Instead, you can pick and choose 20 units to put on board the boat to either transport, or use as the boat's firepower, much like a midevil GG.

I guess it all comes down to it they are making this game for counsels or just pc. if they are making it for counsels then no we will not see ship crew but i think your average game pc could handle some crew in a big battle.