so last night

i was having some sleep problems and started thinking about the concept behinde rometotalwar2 and how it will develop further into the future with all the dlc´s and how modable it can be and i came up with a new wierd concept :\

what about if ca was to launch enginetotalwar and then sell their games as content for the engine this way it could be adjusted to what people really want in a game (even for some wierdos wanting to see an 18th english faction vs a 10th century french faction )

the prospect is ca as so far the best game engine available so they should focus on fixing it´s problems and making it it´s main product instead of just having it as suport for it´s games wich are basically always disapointing ever since rome total war so then they could sell the engine wich would be adaptable to diferent computers with diferent specs so they could also get the gamers with lower internet conections and weaker computers by selling them games wich they can actually play instead of having those players frustated by the lagging of the games (and seriously we´re talking about chinese indians and brasilians who atm aren´t the richest markets per capita but will soon enough become important markets )

this would also make launching a new game far easyer since they would only have to work out factions and maps while the engine would already be available so a chinese kingdom total war an american native total war and so forth and so forth would be easy to create and then sell

aslong as the engine was properly made it would only take like 1 update every 3 months to enhance it´s hability

atm ca/sega are limited to their hability to launch titles but what if they could just grab quite a few mods finetune them to their engine so as to maximize the mods and prevent compatability problems and sell them considering that the moding comunity is very dinamic and can draw from an endless pit of creativity they would never run out of either new content or new titles to launch

so advantages of this crazy concept:
- wider market range since atm they can only acess the markets where people can afford top of the line machines
- easyer to adress individual needs
- hability to sell far more content
- fidelization of the customer base
- hability to just recruit mods into their available dlc (i mean i would pay for an europabarbarorum that would be fine tuned as not to have a cdtc every 10 turns )
- virtually lack of borders for concepts and timelines for their game someone new will always show up with a new idea for a game
- consistent and regular income as opposed to invest a alot of money now and hope it pays up later
- hability to just work on several diferent projects at the same time and launch them whenever they are ready instead of having a crazy deadline that won´t be able to be met

the concept is ca sells their game engine and throws in some games (or car chassis ) and then starts to work from a direct bussiness to consumer base instead of the regular bussiness to distributer base allows mod teams to develop products and then finetunes those same products for those willing to pay for a more stable version of those same mods while suporting the mod comunity by providing them with tools to allow them creativity in their processes

bllizzard as done it thanks to the wow i think ca made an attempt at it with spartan but they still lack the right concept

since nobady wants to engage in constructive or creative criticism bashing or adding changes that they think it´s reasonable i will just add that last night i went trough 4 hours of a very nice bbc documentary called the blood of the vikings

didn´t had much info into what i already knew but it seems well made except for the choise of music and all the attention given to dna wich in the end seems a bit over reaction for the final product given

maybe this last one will spark more attention and a more active debate i hope :\

Basically a ( digital ) universal wargaming platform , similar to the tabletop universal wargaming systems , right ?

Viable ?

Satyros

something like that bit where the hardware is not online but on your computer and you would just download the game you wanted and with the factions you desired with the map you wished for and the game mechanics you think would work better and with the gamerules/houserules you think it suits the game best

so 1st i would go with a steppes total war 1st roaming around the prairies and killing off anything that showed up in my way controlling merchant routs getting bribes from setled people in the edges and having a crapload of fun seing my heards growing bigger and with no city´s on the steppes instead it would have psf with no walls to determine who controlled that region (and in the batlemap there would be no central square so whoever won would gain the territory for their heards and the taxs from merchant routes or other natural resources in those lands )

then i would switch to a classical greek total war conquering city´s and implementing goverments of my liking with sparta and bullying people into my league while trying to mantain a healthy demographic growth going as far as forcing allies to suport my spartan homoi (like every city instead of providing 1000 men for the war or 1 regiment they would just have to pay the upkeep of my homoi ) ofc that in such a game you would/could only control 1 city and manage it the best you could while trying to control a sphere of influence ( so the places you conquered would be part of your faction and you could choose how they would contribute but you would have no direct control over it you would have to choose if they suported your faction with gold with soldiers or something in beteween but they would always be limited to their own budget in the help they could provide you with )

that just 2 examples of very specific games or game mechanics i would like to see implemented into the game and that i sugested for eb2 (yeah yeah game limitations i know ) wich would make the game far more realistic and most importantly fun and historical nothing forced the saka or the phallava from leaving the steppes they could have chosen to remain there and kick the hell out of those other nomads and roam forever free in the same way as the greek alliance was never 1 single faction

another interesting game mechanics is that you could just automatichally recruit like in the mercenary pool to form a great army and go out conquering but by autum they would disband and return to their lands except for those marked as semi-professional or those you picked/choose to pay the upkeep (and ofc they could only disband if they where in a region bordering your lands if they where at sea you would just risk facing discontempt and rebelion/mutiny)

also you would have to recruit them via a 2nd recruit option where you would train them but they would be added to the mercenary pool of the region but you wouldn´t pay their upkeep only the training part and it would take 1 turn for them to be available

also during rebellions the rebel armies would be composed of those same units available in the recruit pool so you would have to try and balance it out by forming soldiers and keep the peace of the region at the same time or you would risk having to fight the same man you had just payed gold to have them trained

ofc those extra troops would be just +1 on the units of that type available in the region there would always be depending on the population size x% of psiloi x% of hoplitai and 10% of elite units so if you wanted more professional or elite troops you would have to suport them from your own pocket

Isn't this kind of like selling the modding tools first then trying to sell scenarios for using them? But once you have engine any scenario is already possible - that's what EB is. If they are going to continue selling new products (making a profit) they have to alter the engine slightly with every new product. Of course your system makes sense to us 'consumers' but financially I am not sure CA could make this pay as well as their current model which gets copious amounts of hype every time a vague shift of the engine (new version) is announced.

except that that means they have no way steady income and everytime they launch something new they have had to invest a crapload of money and not be sure of what they´re going to get (they have an idea) also everytime they launch something new there´s more and more people displeased with their work and they won´t buy their next product or will probably wait 2/5 years until they do buy that product depending on their expectations of priçe quality

also launching something new means there´s always bugs i mean they have a limited amount of people to work for something while the modding comunity is only limited by how much atractive the projects are so limited time and manhours to work on something means bugs => discomtempt => negative publicity => cracking of the playerbase

the sistem i propose would just mean they only had to make a few stress tests and tune what the modding comunity produces to the engine and then sell it for 1€ if the people wanna pay they win if they don´t they have no right to complaint when their original modded version wich wasn´t fine tuned caused crashes or compatability problems and so forth or that the new features don´t run well because it didn´t took into consideration the machines specs

also every part of the new dlc would have to pass trough ca to be finetuned or the people using it would end up suffering what we suffer here in eb with all the cdtc and other problems

this way they can make money selling the engine (plus a skin for that engine like rome total war 2 or tw gold edition from the 1st shogun to napoleon ) and then earn a living with a steady income selling new factions new units selling game mechanics packs new maps and whatever people think they need to make their perfect game ofc the engine must include decent ai preferably adaptable to people´s needs with decent diplomatic stands and so forth

and ofc i wouldn´t want ca to stop producing new amazing games this would just be a kind of sideproject or beta testing so they could know what people really want in their games when they decide to produce decent rpg´s or real time strategy games as amazing as shogun or medieval total war where back in their days

I don't think all the TW games have been a disappointment since Rome... I thought Medieval 2 was good, with mods it's at least as good as Rome was with mods. Empire was a disappointment yes, the AI was so bad it ruined the whole experience, but Shogun 2 and FotS were exemplary. Historically accurate, good AI.

If there was a word that meant "beyond impractical", now would be an appropriate time to put it to use. The idea is very niche-oriented. We're talking niche-within-niche. A Total War that tends toward a skeleton which must be built upon by the end user is far too esoteric. The idea is not a bad one at all, but there are far more players who would make clientele from a specific, ready-to-play faithful Total War product than a skeleton engine. My two pence.

Reminds me of those RPG Maker games for the PSX back in the early 2000s.

It's a fun idea, but I can't see how much it would do for the TW series. Financially they know they're far better off to just keep making new shiny titles rather than one that is just a modder's heaven, followed by new titles.

well in the end it would end up with 10/20 teams developing games out of those skelletons and then ca would be selling 20 diferent games more adapted or less adapted to people´s needs

They've already been doing that. Except instead of adopting the path of obsolescence (which is what the skeleton engine would amount to), CA has been improving and revamping their engines, creating engines from scratch when needed (cf. Sho./Med. >> RTW/M2TW >> ETW/NTW >/> S2TW >>>> R2TW).

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Originally Posted by I_damian

I don't think all the TW games have been a disappointment since Rome... I thought Medieval 2 was good, with mods it's at least as good as Rome was with mods. Empire was a disappointment yes, the AI was so bad it ruined the whole experience, but Shogun 2 and FotS were exemplary. Historically accurate, good AI.

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Sorry what? Shogun 2 was a massive dissapointment. Every faction was excacly the same, the AI was still predictable and the units were boring. All it had was good graphics.

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Originally Posted by Rifal

Every faction was excacly the same,

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Well, thats sort of the problem with creating a civil war scenario. Don't get me wrong, i hated Shogun2 to the point that I've uninstalled it despite not needing to for space or anything. But I understand the issue of 'sameness'. To a degree they probably even exaggerated the differentiation that would have been present historically when they made the special faction bonuses. If you are going to rip into them for somehting I don't think "all factions were the same/similar" is a very good point.