 Linus Tech Tips coverage of PAX 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 2. Why did you make Rome Total War 2? I mean there's so many other things you guys could have done. You could have done like Ant's Total War, or like Robot's Total War, Alien's Total War. Why are you revisiting Rome? Now you said I'm wishing we'd done Robot's Total War, because that sounds brilliant. So the time is right really. It's a period we've always wanted to revisit. The technology we have now, you know the Warscape engine has developed quite significantly. You know the original Rome was like nine years ago now, so the technology we have now, we can do that period greater justice, we can look at things in greater detail, we can deal with greater scale and we can just do a better job of it now. It's something we've always wanted to return to, but also it's something that our fan base has 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 2 next, I hope it's Rome 2 next. So I think the time is right to do it. So you talk about being able to do it better justice. I mean you know the battlefield battles themselves, the mechanics of them, they weren't fundamentally broken in Rome Total War in any way. So what is it that the better technology allows you to really do differently? How is it grander and better? So you know in terms of the graphics technology and the processing technology we have available to us now, we can just represent that world in greater fidelity, in greater detail, and with a greater sense of atmosphere as well. I mean if you try playing battles in different parts of the world in Rome 2, you'll get this real sense of location. We've got greater elevation in the landscape, we've got very very different lighting models for different parts of the world, very very different weather systems, and this just creates a greater sense of atmosphere. And I think as well as the greater technologies, the growth of the studio in terms of the talent that we have in house just means we can just do things better and we can do more of it. The music that we, in the game, we've recorded it with a complete symphony orchestra, and you can really hear the difference. Back in Rome it was kind of MIDI, it was all computer made music really. So now we've got this tremendous sweeping orchestral score, and we've sort of suffused that with ethnic musicians that have come in and played these ancient instruments for us. And whether 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. So Rome was a melting pot of cultures, so we want to reflect that as well in the music and the atmosphere of the game. So yeah, it labels us to do all sorts. So one of the big problems with, not just Rome Total War, but you look back at any of the games that are sort of older at this point, like 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 just seemed very two dimensional back in that era. What have you guys done this time around? So there's two real key changes to diplomacy, because, excuse me, so when you're dealing with AI factions on the campaign map, you want to make alliances, or declare war and all that kind of stuff. So this idea of transparency into the AI decision making process is something we've really tackled head on with Rome too. So we have a new part of the UI which shows you a list of all your past actions by which that particular faction is judging you. So if you've conducted wars against his friends, he will like you less. And we've got plus and minus points, and we give you a kind of balanced rating of how much that AI really likes you, and therefore how likely it is to want to conduct constructive diplomacy with you rather than say attack you. And I think we've all been in a situation in Total War game in the past where an AI faction has attacked us and we don't really know why. And now we can show you that. 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 war-like nation, you know. But part of it also is that, you know, you've 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, yeah, I mean, you know, I think people will find it a lot more natural, a lot more intuitive, and, 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 a giant combined land and sea battle where we've got, we get to play at navies with troops on and artillery weapons. So they can go and have a naval 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 army of Ptolemy XIII. So, you know, it's a kind of classic historical battle from history, but it's a real mixture of loads of the kind of new elements that we've got in battles in Rome too. And of course, it's a lovely, great, big, giant scale battle as well, which is really good fun. And the other battle that we've got playable here is the Battle of Teutoburg Forest, which is, which was a, it was the battle, it was a 9 AD. It was the battle that proved to the Romans that they weren't the masters of all warfare. Rome got its nose bloodied really badly. It lost three legions in the most carefully orchestrated ambush and was portrayed, you know, it was portrayed by one of its own officers. You know, a guy called Arminius betrayed his own side because he was German by descent. And in Germania, he saw how his kinsmen, his old kinsmen had been treated by the Roman settlers, the Roman invaders, you know, by the, you know, by the local forces. So he rallied the Germanic barbarian tribes into an effective fighting force. So we've been giving out prizes for people 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 playing it. So, you know, it's like you can play on easy. It's a lot easier, 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, OK, OK, 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. So it's a good kind of repeat play battle. Not really nice challenge, basically. So both these battles show off, you know, our new battle engine, the huge fidelity in the soldiers we've got in the game and 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. Guys, don't forget our coverage here at the show is powered by Western Digital, Intel and SteelSeries. So a huge thanks to those guys for allowing us to be here.