This 10 minute (31mb) video we found has a brief chat about Empire At War to a small crowd. Showing off Hoth followed by a brief lightsabre fight between Darth Vader & Obi Wan, we jump to lightspeed into space and see the Galactic Map in action, followed by confirmation (approx 9mins 32 seconds) into the video that the Death Star can indeed, destroy ships

Trailer Section (http://www.empireatwar.net/fall2005/community/trailers/index.htm)

DMUK

Very nice clip...

Awesome, also saw Byss on the galactic map.

Where did you see the Death Star destroy capital ships? I did not see this. A Rebel ship explodes, but this could have easily been caused by Imperial capital ships, TIE Fighters, etc. I saw no green superlaser.

That whole graphic glitch with a world being destroyed hasn't been removed, I see. :cry7: When the Death Star destroys a world, the "shockwave" of the blast still goes -right through- the Death Star.

Questions is....

How quick a recharge rate is set on it... - Is a more important question for me.

You dont see the Death Star destroy any ships, but the guy with the microphone mentions it

DMUK

The guy doesnt say the death star can kill capital ships, all he says is he could continue the battle and kill the capital ships or the space station, he never actually says the death star can do this.

Yeah I dont think he meant death star, i just rewatched the movie and it seems to me he means he could continue the battle and kill everything with ships, depending on his strategy. This strategy would be killing the ships, so he can land and take the planet.

It is still too sketchy to offically announce the death star can kill a capital ship in my opinion. Until someone says those exact words I wont believe it.

bah, popcorn you just said exactly what I came here to post.

listen to the lines again guys... it doesn't mean the death star can't, but it's definitely not a confirmation yet.

The only thing that I am hesitant about is that the game seems aimed more at the casual audience (in the beginning the guy said this was a game for people who were overwhelmed by current strategy games). BFME aimed at the casual crowd, and didn't give much thought to supposedly "too complicated" stuff like balance or depth. If this game wants to last longer than a playthrough the Galaxy mode, it has to embrace these aspects too.

EDIT: Bah, LF still has problems, no matter how snazzy the interface is. Triple post deleted.

Ahh three post!

Well, he also said that you could vary how much of the battles you want to actually control. So, theoretically, it would appeal to both sides: the casual gamer who wants a quick 15-minute cinematic battle, and the hardcore gamer who wants to win with the least amount of casualties possible.

If you are the second type, just adjust the settings so that you control all aspects of the battle. Simple enough, eh?

I'm with Sith on this one it is looking like they are targetting casual gamers which sucks. Looks like GB will have a longer lifepspan then this game.

Well, I'm sure balance and depth will still be there... just not on the level of previous RTS's. RoN, AoE... they all had balance and depth at a different level, including various improvements to resource gathering AND battle techniques. It sounds like this game's just going to be more geared towards one aspect (combat) and excel at it.

R:TW, for example, has tons of "balance" and "depth" but no resource gathering. In my opinion, it's not nearly as overwhelming as games like AoE and RoN where you simultaneously have to manage resources and cities as well. Besides, AoE and RoN didn't have much to the combat systems anyway compared to other games. Given R:TW as a comparison, I'm fairly confident this game will be complex enough for the hardcore gamer but still easy to jump into for the casual gamer; the complexity just won't be spread out so much like it was in other games, it will be focused on combat and micro/macromanagement.

Hmm, I feel like I'm lacking in examples. Let's take AoE vs EaW.

AoE has resource gathering, a hinderance in some people's eyes, content to other people. Whatever. So in EaW you can't do this, it's not as complex... but you still get an income and you have to budget it in the same manner. In EaW, you can target certain points on the ship, and on the ground you can call for reinforcements and bomber strikes. Also on the ground, the combat is more complex because there isn't one almighty unit (i.e. the Paladin, teutonic knight... I don't know it's been so long) and there's plenty of checks and balances among units. In AoE, can you target certain points on the castle to disable its capability to fire arrows? Can you call to your home base to instantaneously send emergency reinforcements? No, but you can sure as hell overrun the enemy with tons of the same unit.

See where I'm coming from? It'll have balance, depth, complexity... I'm sure of it. Don't be so sure it's "just for casual gamers."

I am pretty sure he was talking about the Death Star.
Not able to look at the clip again right this moment, but I remember when he started to talk about finishing off the station, the Death Star had moved into position and was in firing range. He commented this, said he could decide to finish off the station or take out Alderaan because, well, it's just cooler. :D

Yeah, he did say something along those lines, but no absolutes about whether or not the Death Star can destroy capitop ships.

You know, an easy solution would be just to ask them in that chat... then we'll have a real answer.

Yes, R:TW did lack resource gathering, but it had a lot of other stuff from the strategic and tactical perpectives that EaW seems lacking in. The battles from EaW seem identical in setup to your typical RTS, with none of the other stuff that R:TW had to take up your time on the battlefield (ie flanking, sieging, moral, etc.). The attacking certain points on the ships relates only to certain units that won't be very common and only applies to space battles, which seem better carried out thus far than ground battles. The whole calling in a bombing raid/capital ship bombard/ion cannon thing is hardly a new concept (think god powers from AoM or general powers from C&C:G), and I can't think of a game that doesn't allow you to build reinforcements (except maybe R:TW, I can't remember if you can reinforce during battles).

All I am saying is that it reminds me of last year, when people where oggling over BFME, and I couldn't help thinking that the game looked like it had too much flash and not enough depth. We haven't been shown much outside of the single player campaign section, so I could be wrong (and I hope I am).

Not enough depth???

An endless horde of Star Wars characters (including but not limited to combat characters, espionage/sabotage characters, and economy characters), 40+ planets - some reknowned, some other dreamed about in the EU like Byss - with different terrain on each one, (optionally manual) base-building and a very crisp/non-frustrating resource management side, and persistent units that - counter to practically all "mission-based" RTS's these days - stay with you battle to battle, all DONE IN REAL TIME.

Like it's been said, when they say simple, I don't think that they mean "dumbed down and stamped with the Star Wars seal of approval." They mean that tedious aspects of most RTS's have been fixed or ameliorated, and that the broad Galaxy Map level of overall macromanagement has been simplified simply so that you may concentrate most of your energy on enjoying the battles. As they've said, you can control all the macro and micro aspects with furious determination, or you can lay back with a more leisez faire approach and let your Stormies tear into those Rebel scum. ;)

Not enough depth???

An endless horde of Star Wars characters (including but not limited to combat characters, espionage/sabotage characters, and economy characters), 40+ planets - some reknowned, some other dreamed about in the EU like Byss - with different terrain on each one, (optionally manual) base-building and a very crisp/non-frustrating resource management side, and persistent units that - counter to practically all "mission-based" RTS's these days - stay with you battle to battle, all DONE IN REAL TIME.

Like it's been said, when they say simple, I don't think that they mean "dumbed down and stamped with the Star Wars seal of approval." They mean that tedious aspects of most RTS's have been fixed or ameliorated, and that the broad Galaxy Map level of overall macromanagement has been simplified simply so that you may concentrate most of your energy on enjoying the battles. As they've said, you can control all the macro and micro aspects with furious determination, or you can lay back with a more leisez faire approach and let your Stormies tear into those Rebel scum. ;)

/agreed

You still need to build, you still need income (though income comes in on a regular basis, constantly ticking in), move troops, ships, assign them to fleets, except, you do all this out of combat situations.

Once combat begins, either by your initiative or your opponment, you'll have to do with the forces and installations that are available to you at that location.

Having watched the video again, yes, I am alittle doubtfull that he ment you can blow up capitol ships with the Death Star. But I'm still optimistic. :)

interesting, i cant wait to have this game :D

Not enough depth???

An endless horde of Star Wars characters (including but not limited to combat characters, espionage/sabotage characters, and economy characters), 40+ planets - some reknowned, some other dreamed about in the EU like Byss - with different terrain on each one, (optionally manual) base-building and a very crisp/non-frustrating resource management side, and persistent units that - counter to practically all "mission-based" RTS's these days - stay with you battle to battle, all DONE IN REAL TIME.

Like it's been said, when they say simple, I don't think that they mean "dumbed down and stamped with the Star Wars seal of approval." They mean that tedious aspects of most RTS's have been fixed or ameliorated, and that the broad Galaxy Map level of overall macromanagement has been simplified simply so that you may concentrate most of your energy on enjoying the battles. As they've said, you can control all the macro and micro aspects with furious determination, or you can lay back with a more leisez faire approach and let your Stormies tear into those Rebel scum. ;)


teh agreed.


we can manually build our own bases how we want?!?!? is this confirmed?

if so WOOOOOOOOOOOOTTTTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I hope we manually build our base! That is one of the funnest things in RTS is to build a cool base. I sure hope it isnt automatic. And I still say he didnt mean the death star shots ships. Just listen to the guy, all he meant was he could not kill the planet and kill the ships. He never said by using the death star. Until I hear "The death star can destroy ships" im not convienced.

Not enough depth???

An endless horde of Star Wars characters (including but not limited to combat characters, espionage/sabotage characters, and economy characters), 40+ planets - some reknowned, some other dreamed about in the EU like Byss - with different terrain on each one, (optionally manual) base-building and a very crisp/non-frustrating resource management side, and persistent units that - counter to practically all "mission-based" RTS's these days - stay with you battle to battle, all DONE IN REAL TIME.

Like it's been said, when they say simple, I don't think that they mean "dumbed down and stamped with the Star Wars seal of approval." They mean that tedious aspects of most RTS's have been fixed or ameliorated, and that the broad Galaxy Map level of overall macromanagement has been simplified simply so that you may concentrate most of your energy on enjoying the battles. As they've said, you can control all the macro and micro aspects with furious determination, or you can lay back with a more leisez faire approach and let your Stormies tear into those Rebel scum.

I'm not buying that argument...

I've heard them use those lines and I have yet too see them show me how it helps the game and not hurt it. Are the battles that macro instensive that you need to micro like crazy? Is there alot of strategy involved to support the backbone of the game without having any economy involved?

The sad part of this all is the BFME will have more economic strategy then this game. I know it doesn't seen natural.

I'm not buying that argument...

I've heard them use those lines and I have yet too see them show me how it helps the game and not hurt it. Are the battles that macro instensive that you need to micro like crazy? Is there alot of strategy involved to support the backbone of the game without having any economy involved?

The sad part of this all is the BFME will have more economic strategy then this game. I know it doesn't seen natural.

I don't buy your argument, I don't think they have informed us to much on how the economy works at this time (other than you don't have to do boring farming or whatever) to make such a bold statement.

The sad part of this all is the BFME will have more economic strategy then this game. I know it doesn't seen natural.

No.
Here, you have to manage trade routes and see which planet is worth conquering. Each planets gives bonuses and more income.
It's a different kind of economical management, not a lesser kind.

Exactly.

One of the most intriguing macro features this game has is the presence of trade routes/hyperspace lanes. Sort of like in SW: Rebellion, you can send fleets to any particular planet, -from- any particular planet. This will take a grievous amount of time, however, while hyperspace routes will allow for instantaneous travel between two worlds. Ownership of two or more planets on the same hyperspace route will also yield hella economic (or more!) rewards.

did anyone else think the guy in the movie was trying to hard to be funny with "batman" and "Thats our fee".

I'm quite interested on how trade routes will work out, as well as what are some planet bonuses other than monotary ones.

Commerce will probably increase between planets that are controlled by the same side and sharing a traderoute (also known as a hyperspace lane). It's the most obvious advantage to it.
That's an assumption though.

Factual advantage is that you will travel faster (not too sure about it being instantaniously, Naja) than if you are travelling between planets that has no hyperspace lanes. You can also not reach every planet from anywhere they have said, either because of distance, or because of planets blocking the path, I don't know.


Starmark, yeah, maybe alittle. :)
Or he didn't present the jokes well enough. ;)
Gave me a smile on my face though.

Sounds the same too me more lumber mills gets you more resources and bonuses like -10% off building cost and you get a trickle of resource. Hmmmm

"Minimal emphasis on economy" no droids cutting trees etc so basically it is just a game where you get trickled resources and just pump stuff out capture planets whatever. What I want to know, is there enough strategy and choices in the battles to cover up for what they have not added?

Trade routes are basically just say you capture Naboo, Tatooine and Coruscant and they have trade routes to each you get better bonuses and more trickled resources then you would just having say Naboo. Its not that major.

Something for you to take up in the chat, FroZ. :)

Did the Rome: Total War economy strike you as trivial, FroZ? After all, there was no truely complicated resource management: all you did was receive the trickle of funds from taxation of your cities, money from trade routes, increased trade from upgrading commerce buildings in your cities, and increased economic efficiency of any given number of your territories, provided you had an economically-inclined governor of each.

Hmmm. Sounds like...just about every feature we'll see in Empire at War!

I did not like R:TW so hope that answers your question.

Are you saying that we would have to have a direct resource harvesting aspect for the game to be strategic? Maybe yes, maybe no, but it would be like practically every other RTS that's ever been made. These Petro guys want to depart from that cliche, and depart like nothing else! They've made it clear since day one how there won't be peasant units or ore trucks, or Tiberium, or anything like that; I fail to see how eliminating this would alone result in a lack of strategic depth in a game.

Indeed. It would be quite moronic to claim that a system of trade routes is dumbing down the econ when strategy games like the Civ serie have been using that forever.

We do not know how trade routes will work. Will there be upgrades? Will there be ways of improving trade without resorting to conquering planets all the time? We don't know for sure yet.
The only thing we know is there won't be any "cilck on worker and click on tree to harvest wood". It does not mean the economy will lack depth in anyway, or else you can easily claim the Civ serie has no economical depth.

When and how did this topic get turned into a debate and big arguement?

When it started turning into a big debate and argument. That's what happens in a forum.

The reason i ask is, i go to other EaW forums and this one has the most arguements, and rudeness...etc..etc..

Now were not rude with each other. Froz, Windu and me have known each other forever. If I bash him or Windu, it's all natural. We've been doing it forever.

And yes, there are arguments, but this forum would be dead without arguments.

Besides, a forum can be a place of debates.
Not just some childish "Oh, your idea is soo cool!" everytime somebody post something even if it doesn't make any sense.

When and how did this topic get turned into a debate and big arguement?
If you cant take the heat stay out of the kitchen. This is one of my favorite EaW forums because of all the debating. We can all voice our opinions and get them shattered down, or maybe some people will like them. Some people actually like debating. I wouldnt call what we do here arguing either, and it isnt too rude.

So long as posts remain constructive - thats the important thing. We all have our views and its great to be able to voice them - right or wrong!

DMUK

Honestly, taking threads off-topic into massive nonsensical arguments is what we do best.:)

That said, I recognize that R:TW has a similar economic system (though it does seem to have much more to do in between turns economically/politically, but I don't have enough facts on E@W to confirm that). My complaints are that there really seems like there is nothing to replace the void that the lack of economic fixation during battles would replace. In fact the battles looked less involved than even normal RTS's. I'm glad you may be able to build bases if you so desire, but they seem kinda pointless during combat if you build all your units and buildings in between turns. And I don't see whats so special about having EU planets and units. They were in SWGB too.

My complaints are that there really seems like there is nothing to replace the void that the lack of economic fixation during battles would replace. In fact the battles looked less involved than even normal RTS's.

Could you elaborate on this "void" you're talking about? What exactly do you consider it to be?

OK, in normal RTS's (AoE, _Craft, C&C) there is, in varying degrees, a level economic micromanagement inherent in the game. You must tend to your workers and protect them and shift them and what not. There also is an inverse relationship between the level of economic micromanagement and military micromanagement. Thus, in games like StarCraft, they make up for a simplified economic model with the use of tactics/spells/abilities that most units can use and an increased emphasis on tactical manipulation. Games like AoK, with a more complex economic model, require simpler military micromanagement for one to remain sane. R:TW excised economy altogether so you could focus wholy on their complex military system and emphasis on tactics. DoW did the same, but to a lesser extent, but had a less involved military model.

This brings us to E@W. They have followed Creative Assembly's lead in excising all economic/base building/unit creation focus from the combat phase of the game, but in turn, have not, atleast as far as I can tell, expanded the combat involvement beyond even games like C&C or Starcraft. Thus there is correlation gap in the relationship between economic involvement and military involvement.

Not necessarily true. For example, the Empire and Rebels have completely different systems of intelligence-gathering: the Rebels have a ubiquitous spy network, effectively making every Imperial movement on the Galaxy Map transparent. The Empire is pretty blind when dealing with the Rebels (the Rebels can also hide bases of theirs on Neutral planets without the Empire knowing), so they have to rely on technology like Probe Droids and TIE Scouts to compensate. Both factions, it seems, will also have access to bounty hunters, though we still don't know how they will affect the game, and to what extent.

As for combat, again, we don't know. Don't forget that in the end, the sole purpose of a game is to be fun and engaging - complexity is merely a means to an end, and if the game can truly reach the desired end without too much of that particular means, I don't think that anything is sacrified. I don't think that we should necessarily be striving for complexity, nor should we be rushing to equate complexity with quality; there are plenty of abhorrent games out there with ridiculous amounts of controls and interfaces, and the like. Less is so much more, in a lot of cases.

Simplicity or not, EaW is not a carbon copy RTS. We know for a fact that besides the standard RTS 'rock/paper/scissors' shindig with units (big units < medium units < small units < big units, etc), the game will introduce an entirely new feature: anti-units. Every unit will have one particular other unit on the enemy's side that it inherently will wipe the floor with, and just demolish. This will be indicated by bigger explosions, fancier sound effects, all that jazz, to let you know when one of your units is firing on its anti-unit.

The differences between the civs has little bearing on what I am talking about. It does make the civ selection interesting, and adds a cool dynamic to the game, but doesn't really affect the balance between economic and military complexity.

"Anti-units" are in most RTS games worth their salt, and are very much a part of the balancing of an RTS. I would be dismayed if E@W didn't have them.

Also, keep in mind, are you sure you'd want economic complexity when you own 40+ worlds in a real time galaxy?

You do realize sith never said that he wanted economical complexity?

He merely mentions that without that layer of micromanagement, something has to compensate for it. R:TW, for example, compensates economy with a complex system of strategies and tactics on the Battlefield.

No, but implicit in his comment is that something needs to be complex for the game to be top-notch. Otherwise, he wouldn't have bothered citing the need for something to be compensated.