Better than Valve and Skyrim” - which is a powerful expression of how far CA want to push themselves. Coding Manager Guy Davidson expressed a desire to be “industry leaders with mods. Apart from the not so simple problem of bandwidth, CA just don’t want to make that many art assets available, protective as they are of their code. The data that ships with the Assembly Kit is a trim figure at 3Gb. The original problem of what to do with all that raw data remained, with Shogun 2 weighing in at a staggering 120Gb. The other tools, previously workarounds around workarounds, were thrown out in favour of proprietary development tools like the TED battle map editor and database editor DAVe.īob, Ted and Dave are all in the Assembly Kit, but that’s not to say everyone else is.
The streamlining effect BoB had on development resulted in an internal argument for the full support of a suite of mod tools, with the realisation that such a thing could now be feasible.
Standing for Build On One Button (the shortened acronym saving everyone’s sanity) BoB was a data processing tool that allowed the quick processing of development code to playable game much faster than the previous day-long wait, and it simply hadn’t been written during Empire’s gestation. Out of these, the creation of BoB served to push mod support to the forefront. More assets and an ever increasing work load fuelled the creation of new development tools, and much needed updates to existing ones. Nonetheless, this change in development was the first step in the road that led to the Assembly Kit. This naturally forced a change to run the final games on processed data, which had the unfortunate effect of closing off much of the game assets from eager fans of modding. However, with Empire’s increased load on limited memory creating unavoidable bottlenecks, CA were seeing start-up times of a mind-numbing 12 to 24 hours during development.
At least, not with the current generation of Total War games.īefore Empire, it was relatively easy to get into the code and muck around, as the game discs shipped with raw development data that built the game on start-up, and modders engineered tools to take advantage of such free access. Bluntly giving the same reason most developers do when announcing they will not be supporting mods, he admitted that it simply hasn’t been possible to do anything like this before. Jack Lusted, who has been CA’s Modding Lead for the past few months - and an ex-modder himself who found employment through his work - came to the fore and explained the decisions behind the move to official community support. After a short round of applause from the modders, there was one more question: What on earth took you so long? We now know what they were planning to announce: the Assembly Kit for Shogun 2, a full modding suite combined with full Steam Workshop support. Seated around a conference table, modders looking over at developers whose work we had been rummaging around in for years, one question was on everyone’s mind: Why? Set during the golden age of Samurai warfare, Shogun 2 brings to life the most turbulent period of Japanese history.Creative Assembly invited key members of its modding community to its Horsham based headquarters last month for a secret meeting. The player takes on the role of one Daimyo - the clan leader - and will use military engagements, economics and diplomacy to achieve the ultimate goal: re-unite Japan under his supreme command and become the new Shogun - the undisputed ruler of Japan. The country, once ruled by a unified government, is now split into many warring clans. It is the middle of the 16th century in Medieval Japan.
Based on 10 years of experience in making Total War, Shogun 2 is the perfection of the series with a new Artificial Intelligence (AI), revolutionary multiplayer modes, brand new campaign map options and epic 3D real-time battles.
Shogun 2: Total War will take long-time veterans and newcomers alike to the next level of strategy gaming on PC. In 2011, the makers of Rome and Empire: Total War will release the sequel to the game that started it all.
With over 7 million units sold and universal acclaim from the press and community, Total War has consistently been at the cutting edge of the genre and is today one of the most successful PC franchises of all time. In 2000, the Creative Assembly re-invented the strategy genre with Shogun: Total War, an unprecedented blend of 3D real-time battles and turn-based management game and the first offering in the multi-award winning series.
MASTER THE ART OF WAR TO BECOME THE UNDISPUTED RULER OF MEDIEVAL JAPAN