Ask Sandy III

Article written by Sandy Petersen
Published on 10-14-1999
Tags: , ,

Q) A way to check the range of units. I would like to be able
to click on a ranged attack unit and see a circle indicating its
maximum range. This would be useful in placing siege units and
towers. Of course the range circle would change based on unit
upgrades.

A) This might be useful. One drawback is that a units shots
actually sometimes exceed (and sometimes fall short) of their
“official” range, depending on unit or target motion, elevation,
cosmic rays, etc. And range circles would look kind of nasty.

Q) It would be nice to have a quick way to check for gaps in
your walls.

A) Walls are already pretty powerful …

Q) don’t sacrafice the realism of the scene for the ease of
strategy

A) Good point.

Q) Someone proposed that double-selecting a control group
should center you on this control group. (Long argument as to why
this is okay omitted.)

A) This argument was pretty good. It will be considered for
the X-Pack (should there be one).

Q) change building interface such that you can have a villager
build a structure, then return to doing something else
automatically afterward

A) Also taken under advisement. One point, though – you DO get
a sound cue for the building’s completion.

Q) you can’t have a unit as part of two control groups. Have
you thought about removing this restriction?

A) This is a brilliant suggestion. I don’t know if it can be
done,but I’ll look into it.

Q) have you considered adding more speech or audible
verification to different key events?

A) Yes. The problem is that we already have so many different
sound cues that it can get confusing. Research completion, farm
expiration, town-under-attack, unit-under-attack, villager
creation, military unit creation,ship production, different
sounds for each building, etc.,

Q) It’s too hard to attack in Feudal and Dark. This sucks.

A) Well, a Dark Age attack isn’t impossible, seeing as there
are no walls. You just have to find villagers beyond the range of
their town center’s protection. A Feudal attack does seem hard,
though we pulled them off here at ES many times. I’m willing to
wait a few weeks and see what strategies are being used by then.
I think that, while it’s likely that the Feudal defenses are a
tad too strong, it’s too early to state it as a confirmed
fact.

Q) What happened to the nomad style of start?

A) It was hell if you happened to be Chinese. We could put it
back I suppose.

Q) militia are available for building but don’t seem to be
effective for attacking

A) Well … they’re better than villagers.

Q) Is there still an attack bonus when attacking units from
the sides or back, or was that taken out before release?

A) The latter. It was too random when you got the bonus, and
was no longer a “decision” made by the user.

Q) In the book, it says the farm upgrade Heavy Plow adds “+1
villager food capacity”. What does this mean?

A) I think they can carry more food.

Q) If a Cataphract, w/bonus against infantry, goes against a
Pikeman, w/cavalry attacking bonus, who wins? Do they both have a
large attack against each other?

A) The Cataphract wins, as it happens, bonuses being equal.
But yes, they BOTH get an attack bonus.

Q) Why didn’t the Byzantines get their own tileset?

A) The same reason the Vikings, Chinese, and Persians didn’t
get their own tile set.

Q) Also, why do the Goths speak German?

A) We like German.

Q) How do i play mp3 files within the game

A) I have no idea.

Q) I wish one could control some more variables in the random
maps, such as resource and wildlife levels

A) Use the random map scripts to do this.

Q) I played a Baltic map where it made a perfect homolog to
the Black Sea. Playing on a ocean map with choke points is too
fun.

A) Good idea for a new map type. However I must disagree that
the Baltic map sans choke points is “too similar to
Mediterranean”. I think the Baltic map has some significant
differences.

Q) Walls and Gates should be capturable.

A) Sure. First I capture the wall, then I delete it. No more
need for those messy siege engines.

Q) The Berserk i would gladly pay more for if it was just a
bit tougher than its barracks unit counterpart.

A) In general, the Castle Age UUs are inferior to their normal
unit equivalents, while the Elite UUs are superior to them. The
Berserks are no exception. An elite berserk has a few less hit
points than a champion, but it has more armor and a higher
attack, plus heals over time. And it only costs 5 gold more.

Q) Like, dude, walls are like, a *****.

A) This is a tough question for me to answer.

Q) what is your favorite architecture style?

A) Near East, without a doubt. Particularly their terrific
towers.

Q) Did this ever happen to you sudinly your playing aok happly
BOOM aok frezes and it wont un freze.

A) Yes, but we fixed all the occasions on which this happened.
At least all the ones we knew about.

Q) I would have quit being a friendly helpful game designer a
long, long time ago, unless MS was payin’ me by the post
response.

A) I have 5 kids, so obviously that has given me much more
patience than the average person

Q) Is there a way to set the default aggression level?

A) No. Worth considering, though.

Q) Computer allies give me chat messages like 201 and 203.
What do they want?

A) They are sending you very explicit messages that you don’t
need to care about. When they want tribute, they will explicitly
tell you that’s what they want. Basically, what they’re saying is
stuff that makes sense only to other computer players. I might
alter what they say in the theoretical X-Pack so it’s
intelligible. Don’t sweat it. Honest.

Q) is there is a way to identiy the drawn people in the
credits? I can recognize you and Bruce(he really stands out…
what is he freakin’ seven feet tall or what?) and maybe Greg, but
I’ve not seen the others.

A) Sure … I can identify every one of them. I think there
are pictures of many ES employees on our website. Good luck
picking us out. Bruce is one big dude.

Q) Why does Age of Kings contain cheat possibilities?

A) Programmers, artists, and fans all seem to love cheats.
Game designers are not quite so enthusiastic …

Q) When is the demo coming out? f you don’t know then when
will you know?

A) I know when MS has told us the demo is coming out. I am not
allowed to tell YOU. It is well before Christmas. On the other
hand, the last time I depended on MS’s date for when something
was coming out I got to be renamed Candy@$$.

Q) I would like to know why the knight’s weapon was changed
back into swords from lances.

A) the animation looked dumb once the knights entered melee,
since they had to sit there and keep poking away. The sword
looked better in actual combat, since (unlike actual medieval
combat), people in AoK don’t get killed by a single blow from a
charging knight.

Q) how did Death Shrimp go from a doctor of marine biology to
a game designer?

A) I recruited him, so ’twas I turned him to the dark
side.

Q) Move the sapper tech to FEUDAL, and make it research at the
Town Center.

A) We will take this under advisement.

Q) How about a pestilence victory condition?

A) That’s not really an RTS-type topic …

Q) How much do you think taht TAoK will cost in a month &
a half?

A) Assuming you mean Total Annihilation: Kingdoms, I just saw
it on sale for $19.95. Could have been a loss leader, I
suppose.

Q) Can you tell us the story for “Villager Male David
Lewis”?

A) Tragically, David Lewis is a full-time employee of Ensemble
Studios, and I am stuck working with him on my next project. For
his bio, check out the ES website.

Q) What was the reason u made the unit ai attack farms on its
own even when there are other buildings in vicinity ?

A) Because you sometimes need to destroy farms, too. They
don’t take that many hits to KO. If you don’t like it, manage
your rams. That’s what I do.

Q) In the beta when a farm ran out and there was an idle farm
next to this the farmer went there to work, now he stands idle
why did u change that?

A) Idle farms are pretty rare in AoK.

Q) With cheat u can get this demolition man thing, ever
considered bringing it into the game?

A) Not just cheats, either – you can place him in scenarios
fair and square. So he IS in the game. And yes, we’re considering
a more polished version of him in case we do an X-pack.

Q) people now start using tcs as offensive weapons was this
taken into account when implementing such strong tcs ?

A) Yes. Remember, you can’t build extra TCs until Castle, and
you have to garrison it before it’s effective.

Q) Is that true only the unique units are different in uniform
between civilizations, and not other normal units?

All other normal units are only different in color between
different civi , right?

A) Right.

Q) Did you company ever think of making the trade cart able to
carry 2-4 slower foot units like Teuton’s knight?

A) A land transport unit has been discussed for a proposed
X-pack. Doesn’t mean it’ll get into the game.

Q) Expansion? If/When?

A) Officially unannounced. Soon.

Q) Why is it when I start a singleplayer deathmatch game the
computer makes some bogus reason and then resign?

A) Because you are playing on Easiest mode with a high pop
cap. There is a known bug (it’s my fault, incidentally) that
causes this problem. Play on Moderate or higher difficulty, or
with a pop cap of 100 or less and this won’t happen.

Q) One time the comp said,”The deer fled when my hunters
sought them. I resign.” What the heck does that mean?

A) It’s a joke. The computer always makes an excuse when he
resigns (just like a real player). Only the computer’s reasons
are patently silly – such as “Your player color was better than
mine. I resign.” Etc. It’s just for grins.

Q) I’m curious to know why the restriction was included on so
many buildings to not allow units to be garrisoned

A) Because both tactical and strategic decisions in gameplay
were made less interesting when we let people garrison in all the
different buildings. It became much more interesting (and
castles, for instance, became much more useful) when only certain
units could hold garrisons.

Q) How about adding a “back” hotkey.

A) I’ll look into it.

Q) Why not giving normal buildings higher priority for
attacking and only if there arent any buildings in the vicinity
rams attack those farms?

A) Rams have a really short LOS, so usually they won’t
auto-target other buildings anyway. In any case, this comes down
to whether its more fun to manage your units or let the computer
do all the work. Rams are few in number and easy to keep track
of, so I see nothing wrong with letting them target whatever. In
any case, if they _didn’t_ auto-target farms, someone would be
complaining about their attacking houses or mills instead of
[insert better target name here].

Q) What’s the story behind Villager Male David Lewis?

A) If Dave Lewis doesn’t want to post his own bio on the ES
website, who am I to pull back the curtain and expose all the
sordid details to the public scrutiny?

Q) What happens when you put archers in a bombard tower?

A) Your archers are nice and safe.

Q) i never got to play a multiplayer of age of kings because
after one minute of playing it always says…out of sync error,
now what does that mean?

A) I think it’s self-explanatory.

Q) How do I fix it?

A) How would I know?

Q) How much is a bonus vs buildings, archers, calvary,
etc?

A) It is different for every unit that gets the bonus.

Q) I tried to make my own scenarios but the population limit
is always set to 75. Is there a way to change that?

A) Not yet.

Q) The time limit victory condition could be greatly improved,
if the time limit could be made fully customizable.

A) I will take it under consideration.

Q) Do you think adding a wood gate can be useful? Particularly
for Goths?

A) I can think of more useful things to spend art time on

Q) Thank you for such a fantastic game.

A) You’re very welcome. Thanks for trusting us enough to
purchase it.

Q) I think their should be a button you can hold to make each
click worth 1,000 in the Market.

A) This is actually under consideration.

Q) I haven’t seen your respond to any of the requests I made
in my previous post.

A) I read them all and thought they were thoughtful and often
insightful. Most were simply amplifications of or arguments for
other requests already made and I didn’t feel like saying “I will
consider it for the patch/X-Pack” yet again. I agree about the
double-click group centering function.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I lack the inclination
to use this thread as a site for me to discuss in intimate
back-and-forth dialogue the ramifications of various game
features. Not that I don’t love y’all, but that I don’t have an
infinite amount of time and, once I grasp the implications of a
particular suggestion, I find it more productive to discuss it
with other ES personnel – which actually affects whether or not
it gets into a game!

Q) How about having actual ‘kings’ or ‘queen’ units in the
game?

A) The problem with units that give bonuses in a radius around
them is that it is not easy to tell who gets the bonus and who
doesn’t. It is not obvious when you look on the screen. There are
ways around this, of course, and we’ve considered them (at one
time Relics gave a radius combat bonus, for instance), but in the
end we decided that for the clean interface we wanted for AoK, it
didn’t fit in. As another example, when I was working at id
Software, the number one request we kept getting from fans was
some kind of inventory system, which is NOT an inherently bad
idea. We decided against it for Doom, Doom II, and Quake because
having no inventory sped up play, and lightning-fast action is an
important part of the Doom/Quake experience.

Q) In the XPack, instead of just saying, “Attack bonus versus
buildings,” please put down WHAT the numbers actually are (you
did it this way for RoR, why get all vague on us now?).

A) Well, to be perfectly honest, we didn’t do it in the main
AoK game because the numbers weren’t finalized until AFTER the
manual was printed! That’s why the RoR pack was able to have
precise numbers, incidentally – it came out almost a year after
AoE, and so the numbers had been solid way before the manual
needed to get done. Expect more firm numbers in any AoK X-Pack
for the same reason!

Q) how does it help ME when the phalanx, hoplite…are 25%
faster?

A) It helps you in three major ways: First, it makes your
units much less vulnerable to radius-effect siege engines.
Second, it reduces the length of time your units have to suffer
from arrows before they get up to the target. Third, it increases
the number of units that your unit can either run away from or
run down. All these are useful, in my opinion. Speed is Life.

Q) Any ideas on possible new civs in the probable X-pack?

A) We have many fine ideas on civs for the probable X-Pack.
None will be seen here on the forum until we get the X-Pack
further along in production. I will say this, however – I think
every single civ we’re talking about has been mentioned on the
forum at least once as a possibility.

Q) How about a “sally port” in the expansion pack? This would
be a one unit wide gate (no siege engine exit?) laid over an
existing stone wall, cheaper than a gate, same hit points as the
wall segment.

A) What would it be for? A gate only costs 30 stone.

Q) How about “martyrdom” from ROR? Or does it disturb the play
balance for high cost units?

A) We have some rather marvelous concepts for new monk
research items, but we do not currently plan to add Martyrdom (or
the moral equivalent) to the list. Basically, we have two cool
monk upgrades in mind. One of them enhances the monks. The other
protects against them. And I will not say any more about these so
please don’t ask.

Q) How about making trebuchets a “crewed” unit?

A) Why?

Q) how have ES players and Beta testers fought against the
Teutons using civs other than the Teutons?

A) We have beaten the Teutons with every other civ in the
game, often consistently. Our opinion is that a better player
will defeat his Teuton-playing buddy, and so victory is dependent
upon skill, not civ choice.

Q) What I am really looking for are hints, tips, magical
solutions, etc. on how to handle the Teutons played by an
opponent of equal (in my case, above average) skill.

A) Well, lots have already been posted in this forum. Here’s
some basic tips, though –

1 – KEEP MOVING. His super-town centers don’t have ballistics
until mid-to-late Castle. Take advantage of that with your
raiders. In addition, his cavalry is the slowest in the game –
your horsies can easily outrun his.

2 – PREDICT HIS ACTIONS. You know he is NOT going for an
archer strategy. 90% of the time, a Teuton goes for infantry
backed up by archer-killing knights. Respond accordingly. He
might try a tower or TC rush. This is not that big of a deal
considering how long it takes to build a TC, plus he’s got to
garrison it. Keep some rams around to KO his TCs if he tries it.
Remember that he can outrange onagers, but not bombard cannons or
trebuchets or cannon galleons.

3 – TAKE YOUR TIME. One thing about the Teutons – they rarely
rush YOU! They are slow to build up, slow to take action, and
most of their bonuses are worthless in the first two ages.
(Conversion resistance? Better monks? Murder holes? Farms? Not
one of these is worth a bit until Castle.) So you know they
aren’t coming after you, at least not successfully. So you can
properly build up. If you decide to pick off some of his
villagers with a raid, it is likelier to hurt him than you.

Q) what do you mean that the Teutons have slow horses?

A) The Teutons are one of only two civs who lack Husbandry
(the other, Vikings, doesn’t care about cavalry). I admit that
their cav is as fast as everyone else’s up to mid-Castle. Oh,
except for the fact that Scouts are slower than Light Cav and
Teutons are the only civ that doesn’t get Light Cav.

Q) why would you say farms are useless until Castle?

A) Because farming is slow and costs wood, while hunting,
fishing, berry-picking, and shepherding are fast and cost
nothing. Your friends that start farming in Dark Age are cheating
themselves out of many fine food sources. Ask anyone.

Q) there were some Castle shots that did not show up in the
final version of AOK.

A) Yep. Too big. If we shrank them, then the gates &
windows looked too small.

Q) Mongol’s might has been tuned down greatly.

A) I respectfully disagree. Increased ROF for horse archers
& increased HP for light cav are significant bonuses. They
mean that Mongol horse archers win their archery duels, and that
Mongol light cav take 30% longer to kill for enemy archers. That
makes one heck of a difference. Add to this their +2 LOS for
scouts, which makes them extremely dangerous sheep thieves, and
you have a very powerful offensive civ. In addition, they get all
foot archers, all infantry, camels, and all siege except the
bombard cannon. What possible addition to their offensive power
could you be considering? Hand-cannoneers? Paladins? (Sandy
snorts derisively.)

Q) Mongol buildings are not historically right for them.

A) NO ONE’s building set is historically right for them.
Everyone’s building set is a mish-mash of different groups from
the same general area.

Q) I really hope in the x pack, you guys can have player set
the formation on or off( like we had in AOE).

A) ?? There are no formations in AoE at all.

Q) Husbandry affects Cav Archers, right?

A) Right. And Heavy Cav Archers are faster than ordinary Cav
Archers. Teutons lack the former.