Ideas for the Shogun battle engine

[CaPeFeAr]

I was just thinking of how cool it would be to play in the era of the Alexander the Great or mabey even the defense of Thermopoly. I think it would be reasonable to have ocean maps as well because most of the fighting was done h2h anyways. Imagine ordering your ships around, ramming and boarding to engage in h2h.. not all the ships were the same size nor did they all have the same capeabilities. By using this battle engine on a stratigic map like the new warlord edition one could think of many possibilites. Trojan War any1? Lets hear what some of you think would be the best time period for the next Shogun type game... As a request lets keep the ideas to basicly pre-modern times ...say eariler than 1900. http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

[Catiline]

I'll try and keep my standard reply to this brief. I want Greek city states next. you've got the troop types, an easy to implement map like Japan with powerful power blocks within it. Plus there the Persian invasion xpack. I want it now!

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It's not a bug, it's a feature

[Krasturak]

Cool idea, Capey.
I'd like to see these different eras also.

[Kraellin]

these 'theme' or 'era' mods are almost a given, if not by us then certainly by the dev guys. they'll be here :)

what i'd like to see is a more distinct division in the parameters of a unit. i'd like to be able to put my money on different things that just honor. how about being able to buy experienced troops and higher trained troops and various physical traits like strength and agility. i could even see being able to 'buy morale'. right now all of this seems to be lumped into one parameter that we are loosely calling 'honor'.

i'd also like to see some more balancing done between quality of troops versus numbers of troops. it is almost impossible for a higher honor-lower unit army to win and historically this just wasnt so. there are lots of cases where higher esprit de corps/honor/morale/loyalty readily made up for numbers and the game shld be able to reflect this. i'm not talking tactics here. i'm quite aware that tactics can make all the difference in the world. but, given 2 equally cagey generals it would be nice to be able to play unbalanced unit number games with the differences mentioned above.

even 'equipment' could be a parameter in the buying of your army. buy cheaper armor or horses or whatever to get better honor or esprit de corps.

now, i am also aware that this game is taxing a ton of computer and internet resources and we've all had our share of lag during games, so that may well be why 'honor' seems to be a sort of lumping of all the above parameters and if so, well, ok. nonetheless, we can all dream :)

K.

[BanzaiZAP]

Fir'st I'm gonna list my wants, then I'm going to comment on Kraellin.

I'd like to see more differing armies, similar to what we're getting with the Mongol pack. Other mixed militaries would be Romans vs Huns, Crusades, that kind of thing. Defending Spain against the Moors perhaps? Aztecs vs Conquistadors? One of the beauties of this engine is that it really handles melee combat well, so you don't want to get too modern. Firearms are nice, but it's the clashing of troops that's new and nifty. For argument purposes, any Fantasy ideas should be put into another thread, since that's been a hotly debated subject.

Kraellin:
I think many of those ideas are already there. Equipment for example. With the expansion, you'll be able to buy the Campaign Effects like boosted armor and swordsmith bonuses in multiplayer. Morale is definitely a different attribute than honor - that's what Palaces do for you in the campaign game. I don't think that shows up in MP other than ease-of-routing, and I assume you're talking about MP. The expansion also is supposed to include training dojo's, allowing you to dump koku into improving troops that are already formed, but again that's SP, not MP.

I agree about the balancing. It does have high-honor troops defeating larger units, but it's only really noticable with large differences - honor 6 vs. honor 1, for example. It's something that I'm sure many programmers have pulled their hair out over already, but it could still be finer.

-- B)

[Kraellin]

k. what i'm talking about is buying 10 units with higher honor and then trying to beat a general who buys 16 units with lower honor. the 16, in this game, will always beat the 10, given comparable generals. and historically this just wasnt so. a high honor, high morale army could often beat a larger force. and by 'beat' i mean kill or rout. it was sometimes tactics that did it, but it was often simply because the high honor/high morale army would stand their ground or better trained or had more loyalty to their cause or general or whatever, but it did happen. sometimes it was just sheer aggressiveness, or hutzpah, or cajones and the current game just doesnt allow it to happen. flanking in this game is weighted way too high, thus, with a smaller army you are going to be flanked fairly easily and the higher morale of the 10 unit army just isnt going to make up for it. neither is 'facing'.

and that brings up even another parameter that doesnt seem to be considered in this game....courage. i suppose one could almost substitute 'honor' for this, but they arent quite the same thing, close, when it comes to the final effect of each, but still, not quite the same. 'courage' to some means being afraid but hanging in there nonetheless, while to others it means 'lack of fear'. 'honor' comes closer to the first definition in the final effect, but it still isnt quite the same thing. honor, loosely defined, means simply, 'that which is deserving of praise or admiration...or that which would have others bestow honors upon one'. thus, standing fast in a fight would be such a thing. courage itself is seen as honorable, so the two words in some contexts are almost the same thing, but, since courage can also mean 'without fear' you cant really call them the same. thus, we can add another parameter.

i've noticed often times that this game seems to define honor and morale as the same thing, especially when buying 'honor' (lol, what a concept). the end effect is that your units dont rout as easily, thus morale equals honor. morale is esprit de corps, a sense of confidence, feeling good, high spirits...particularly about the coming battle and your chances of winning. it can also be how many battles you've won in the past, how 'just' you feel your cause is (ever see an army that knew they were fighting an unjust cause?). but morale is fickle. it can turn on a single shot, a single comrade falling in battle....honor doesnt. troops that have lost all morale but yet have a high sense of honor will stand to the last man sometimes, even though they know they have no chance of winning. the game, while playing, does seem to do a fair job of this, but i've often wondered when buying units just exactly what it is i'm buying. am i buying honor, morale, equipment, experienced troops, equipment, training, courage, or what. in the end, some of these are moot when it comes to standing or running troops on the field, but not always. and that's what i'd like to see changed. i'd like to know exactly what i'm buying and what general effect it has on the field of battle and be able to tailor my units more exactly.

as for single player or multi, i'm just referring to multi and not the upcoming online campaign and certainly not the existing single player campaign.

you also mentioned a lot of things supposedly upcoming in the expansion pack. what is your source for this information?

K.