Suggestions for the next TW game

[Quid]

1. Rome 2: Total War
2. Greece: Total War
3. Mesopotamia: Total War
4. Persia: Total War

I would love something ancient. I am not a big fan of the gunpowder eras. Not too keen on another Southeast Asian game. We've just had one - perhaps later. Definitely not a fan of fantasy...One of the reasons I always liked this series is because it was (at least loosely) based on fact.

Quid

[Madae]

Not that it's my right to judge what someone else wants, but I always thought it was weird that someone would ask for "specific country: Total War". Seems like an idea reserved more for a (community) mod than an entire game based around one country... though, I suppose the Kingdoms expansion did a lot of that, but there were 4 of them, so that kind of made up for the small focus of each game.

Weirdest idea I've seen so far was Africa Total War. Not that I have anything against Africa, but with exception to Egypt and South Africa, the rest of it really doesn't strike me as Total War worthy. It's just a history not many people know (or, sadly, care) about - unless you live there, of course.

[Marshall Louis-Nicolas Davout]

30 years total war.

The 3 kingdoms total war

[Madae]

30 years total war.

The 3 kingdoms total war

I always thought off the 30 years war?Thats a great topic.

I agree,The 30 years wars is a great subject as it is catholic vs protestant.

I agree with Romance of the 3 kingdoms,But I hope for Shogun 3,30 years wars.This idea of Islanders seem to spoil the concept of total war,I wouldnt buy it,

Nah.I would love the 30 years war.

But to lighten the mood.I want CA to make the 30 years war,

30 years total war.

30 years total war! It must be made!

I hear that if you say it enough, it will eventually get made.

[Marshall Louis-Nicolas Davout]

I hear that if you say it enough, it will eventually get made.

Indeed,that is very true.

[InsaneApache]

Early Bronze Age.

[Marshall Louis-Nicolas Davout]

30 years total war

[econ21]

In my initial post in this thread, I originally stipulated one post per member but then edited it out to encourage debate. But let's not spam the thread, please.

[Madae]

So, I was reinstalling Medieval 2, and I was thinking about how much I liked the whole trait building feature of it with Princesses and Generals receiving random traits. I really enjoyed developing my princesses and marrying them to my generals to make them better because of the bonuses she gave him. If the new TW is Medieval 3, I would really like to see that developed more than it was. I treated it almost as a meta-game and found a lot of enjoyment in building good generals/princes/kings. Though, I would like to see the negative aspects of it reduced slightly. Nothing sucked more than having a great general with awesome bonuses lose them all because he suddenly developed an insanity trait that made him worthless and totally counteracted all the work I put into making him better... but then again, it did add a lot of unpredictability, which I guess is good on a whole, but still. The negative penalties of some of those were really harsh.

Here is something else I just thought up;

I know there was a move to make soldiers less "cookie-cutter" and have them each have their own style and feel with armor and such, but it would be neat that depending on how successful the group was and how much experience they gained, the units started upgrading themselves to make them better on a whole, like maybe an update from chain to plate. I guess the main issue is that, as you get farther in the game, you build up particular units in the early game to be really good soldiers, but then they start to get outclassed in the later game because you have better units to recruit.

This would really only work in a Medieval setting, since historically those soldiers outfitted themselves, where in Rome or Empire, they were made specifically and equipped by the army. Shogun could probably see some of this, but it doesn't work as well with them since there are less types of units.

So I guess what I'm trying to say here is; let the units upgrade themselves slightly and change their look over time, as well as increase their stats in a visual way (unlike Shogun where they just got better stats from experience).

[gauch0]

I am ready for the mechanics and graphics of Shogun 2 to be further developed into Medieval 3. I enjoyed Rome, but I'd happily skip another Rome game and jump right back to Medieval. I especially want to see Medieval 3 using the new retainer and skill trees system from S2, new diplomatic options, the unit replenishment system and IMPROVED CASTLE DEFENSE! Medieval is all about the sieges, and S2 really made some promising leaps forward in fort defense. More please!

One thing that would be great: I love the objectives that give bonuses in S2 multiplayer. I'd love to see this concept integrated into the single player game.

[Akka]

One important thing : bring back the battlefields which are created from the strategic map terrain.
It was a great option, allowing for huge amount of variety and a bit of strategic calculation. The STW2 repetitive battlefields that have little to do with the actual terrains have been a huge (and really ununderstandable, why remove such a nice feature ?) let-down.

[Ludens]

It's true S2:TW would benefit from a greater variety of battlemaps, but I am actually very happy that CA decided against generating the battlefields directly from the campaign map. The reason the current maps are so atmospheric is because they are "hand-made", not generated by an algorithm. In R:TW, on the other hand, the maps were based on the campaign map, and after a while they felt just as repetitive as the S2:TW ones. Yes, the engine would adjust the "background" on the basis of nearby map tiles, but the maps themselves were bland and dominated by a single feature (say a big forest or giant slope). There would have been a hundred "unique" forest maps, but after a campaign or two they all felt the same.

Admittedly M2:TW already did better than R:TW in generating interesting maps, and I haven't played E:TW/N:TW so I don't know how well they do it. But I do think a small number of well-made maps is better than a large number of computer-generated ones.

[Vladimir]

Couldn't disagree more. The battles from S2 are a real letdown from the prior series I played. The limited premade maps are part of the problem. It's similar to a problem I had with the MTW maps but it seems like even those had more variety.

If I park my army on a bridge, I want to be on the bridge when battles start. Total war is about the battles, not the atmospherics.

[Sp4]

Rome 2 kthxbai =P

[Akka]

It's true S2:TW would benefit from a greater variety of battlemaps, but I am actually very happy that CA decided against generating the battlefields directly from the campaign map. The reason the current maps are so atmospheric is because they are "hand-made", not generated by an algorithm.

Sorry, but I strongly disagree about the map being atmospheric to begin with. They have absolutely NOTHING "special" compared to the automatically-generated maps from the previous games.
The castle on a mountain with the nice waterfall is the one detail I'll concede. It was pretty gorgeous the first time I saw it.
For the rest, it was just bland battlemaps minus variety and minus relationship with the map. Hard to see what was gained.

[Hamata]

Early Bronze Age.

This! +1

[Furunculus]

whatever they do, it must have more of an epic scale than S2:TW.

i appreciated the polish of S2, but it was too small.

[Marshall Louis-Nicolas Davout]

whatever they do, it must have more of an epic scale than S2:TW.

i appreciated the polish of S2, but it was too small.

Shogun 2 was on a massive scale.

[Furunculus]

i consider it differently.

the number of territories was reduced, the number of turns collapsed, and the variation obviously reduced.

this allowed for a very polished experience, and no doubt took just as much work, but was a more constrained TW experience.

[Vladimir]

I agree. I opted out of Empire but M2 encompassed a much grander scale. It feels more like an expansion than a full game.

Of course, there is only so much you can do on the Japanese islands. Not having other nations to interact with shrinks the scale.

[Nelson]

I agree. I opted out of Empire but M2 encompassed a much grander scale. It feels more like an expansion than a full game.

Of course, there is only so much you can do on the Japanese islands. Not having other nations to interact with shrinks the scale.

Sega needs to get out of the way and allow a Korean Invasion DLC. It's a natural.

[Nowake]

A few major DLCs must still be probably incoming. Since normally they tended to make one game per year or so, they would've probably announced their next title already if not for plans for upcoming S2 content. Plus, this instalment in the series is the perfect time to introduce a longer break between titles.
I could be wrong of course, I have not followed the series after STW and MTW until S2 was released. But I believe they usually start to build up expectations quite early right?

[MDPR]

#6 suggested the following in which I agree. I have commented some of them.


Bigger armies

Fix unit path-finding on walls & quit having it so that walls basically offer no restriction to enemy movement.

3rd level of the game.

Baggage train/camp.

This would also create a new ambush opportunity, taking out the baggage train of an enemy army, thereby also giving both the AI and human player, a march-formation option, when moving an army on the strategic map. For instance as in the following march-formation example:

- Light Cav up front -

- Archers behind Light Cav -

- Light Cav on the left flank - Meele in the center - Light Cav on the right flank

- Baggage Train behind Meele -

- General behind Baggage Train -

- Archers behind General -

- Heavy Cav in Rear -

So by destroying the baggage train of an enemy army, the enemy should be forced to "live of the land", causing rebels to go against such enemy army. That also open up for the option of giving the provinces even more personality. For instances in some core faction-provinces, should an enemy army live of its land, the people will rebel in force, perhaps even add units to your army, while other more outskirts provinces will not even rebel, but simply bend the neck and hope the enemy army will leave the province soon.

Adding a baggage-train to the next TW-game, will make the otherwise usual 'move an army into enemy land' more complex. As it is so far, it is simply not challenging enough.


Bring back Town view & add Army view.

This would be nice, especially if the settlements are made customized, making it possible to actually form your settlement geographically. Like as the player decide to only wall-in a specific part of town (where the rich lives) and thus not where the poor live, basically dividing up the settlements in poor and rich as they have always been. Or like only having 1 wall-gate, or allowing only 1 out of x roads getting maintenance. It should also be possible to build small inner-city-castles or brigde-defenses, or to destroy a bridge.



My own suggestion are:

Multiplayer campaigning.

Total War has been out for so many years now. It has had a great focus on the graphical part of the game, but it is still the AI that is in focus. Dont worry, if you make a multiplayer-focused game next time. Regardless of a turn taking 30 minutes people will get used to it and still play the game, in-fact, over time the players will play it even more, since playing multiplayer-campaign is a unique experience every single time. That can sadly not be said with AI-campaigning.


Make modding more easy.

It should be more easy to mod. Personally I think the future of being a video-game company, lies more in advising the community. than in developing the game your self. Develop the frame for a highly moddable game and then focus on a new core-service; advising and helping.

This core-service should of course have a price, so the mod-team wanting to use the service pay an amount of money. The game-frame it self, however, should be cheap.


Less toonie - more realism

Essentially TW still have this cartoon-view over it, partly customizable now in Shogun 2, in regard to unit colours, but still as default cartoon-style. I think it is time TW focus even more on a realism-view, thus less focus on shiny colours and also less redundant sound-effects / voice-overs. The sound-side of Shogun 2 is a epic step in the right direction. Love they speak so much Japanese, they should in fact speak as little English as possible, since it destroy the reality feeling.

Paradox as example made that Hearts of Iron 3, really going in-depth. Any move in that direction in a future TW game, would be really nice - and new.


Keep focusing on individual conflicts.

When as in shogun 2 the game focus on a single nation, regardless of age or war, the game feels more realistic. Why not go all the way and focus on a single factions campaign in a specific age in a specific war. Then you could zoom really in-depth, both map-wise and game-mechanic-wise.

For instance as in the the Hundred Years War. Make an entire TW-game out of 1 year of Jean D'arcs 1429-campaign, splitting up the campaign-map in 200 areas, all in details and so forth. For instance the city of Orleans, split it up in sectors, so it takes several battles over several turns, to capture the entire city.


A new addition to the core game-plot

I think this game-review of Shogun 2 explain the problem very well; a too simple game-plot. In short as the review explains the game-plot is still today, even after 10 years of development, as follows: expand your empire. That's that.




A new addition to the game-plot; learning.

See, total war is a game about leadership, where you take tons of decisions, located on a variety of levels. But essentially that is what you do, making decisions. So why not emphasize a new plot in the game, focused on your own leadership style and leadership efficiency?

Such suggestion open up for new game-types; clan-multiplayer-campaign, where the human clan leader is in-fact the faction-leader, and where the factions generals and governors, are also human players, all playing their own complex part of the overall game. So for instance the faction-leader doesn't go to battle every turn, since his part of the game, primarily is to make plans, make budgets, hold meetings (chat/voice-over) and essentially keep the faction together as one. His generals and governors play other parts of the game, being either a sim-city-type of game with an economical emphasis, or a real-time total war battle-game, where you actually have to train your units, perhaps even training your captains also being human players skilled up in example flanking attacks.

So with this addition the game it self would evolve into a learning experience about how you as a player teamwork with others, how you learn, as well as how you fight your opponents, meaning the winning set-up could be optional before a campaign is launched, where the old setup as we know it today (dominance-focused) and the new setup (teamwork-focused).

It could also lead into another type of winning set-up, being to defend your territory, basically to survive the campaign against a dominance-focused faction. In this type of game, your objective would be to defend your own region and help allies against the dominance-focused faction /s.


Besieging settlements and ports

I would also like to see a new system of required amount of units, in order to siege anything on the map. It is still today so unrealistic that a single unit can besiege a city of 25000 inhabitants.

In TW a walled settlement in general have 4 walls. That should therefore mean that anyone wanting to lay siege should have a minimum of 4 full units, or perhaps 4 units with a maximum depletion of 20%.

Throughout the history of warfare it has been seldom that a tiny force has besieged a huge city. And when it has been like that, the siege-force has normally deployed it self in tiny fortifications around the city, in order to withstand any relief-force.

Any huge city on the map should not be possible to siege, unless the siege-force is big.

Laying siege to anything on the map shouldn't be something you just do in a few clicks. It should require a filled out siege-plan, thus new siege-options; how should your siege-force deploy? should all roads from the city be cut off? Should your siege-force build defensive structures, to withstand any relief-force?

It could be a dialogue-box, like the swapping army box, where you can drag units from one army to the other, however, in this case where you see a city-minimap in one of the two boxes, and simply deploy your units to different parts of the siege-line, by dragging them to an ouside-siege sector, of the city.



New types of starting a game

It could be an interesting feature to have some factions, where you for instance start out being a vassal to a huge faction, having to obey what they want you to do; produce units for it, send supporting armies, provide them with skill full characters and so on, making it really difficult for your self to have any standing regular army, or a pool of skill full characters or anything above survival-level really. Then at some point your master-faction gets attacked and begin to fall apart, meaning you are suddenly facing a new situation, where you finally can begin to raise an army your self, however, since this is later in a game, your opponents are all outclassing you, since you have to start from scratch.

Another type of start could be that you are attacked all over the place. First thing taking place on the screen, after start that is, is a battle you are forced to fight. A battle where you could easily loose. At the same time your settlements are besieged and so on. Essentially in such a type of game, your goal is not to become the leading faction, but a faction in peace with its neighbours.


Battle-rumour

Should the human player focus continuously winning battles against the AI, using ranged units to deplete the AI units, before engaging in full fight, a battle-rumour should be created, so the other enemy AI armies, has some foreknowledge about how the human player deploy and fight.


Bridges on the strategic map

It should be possible to destroy bridges, in order to 1) prevent your enemy from crossing, or 2) harassing his supply-lines. And for some TW games where you can produce monster-cannons, only certain types of bridges should be able to support such an weight, making some bridges more important than others.


AI battle-behaviour - ambush / hiding

In battles on AI enemy ground, thus within an AI province, a battle in general should be in the AI favour, supposed to know the terrain better than your army. Thus the AI should have more surprises up when fighting on own soil.


Fog of war

It should not be possible to literally view the size and composition of an enemy army, almost every single time you click on it, on the strategic map. A lot more fog of war here would be nice in any future TW game. Cause then you never really know what your facing. Same for the stats of enemy generals or characters, or even settlements / castles / forts, not letting foreigners inside just like that. Sure an agent should be able to provide information, but it should be more difficult.

[Vanya]

GAH!

Vanya wonders... whatever the period, is it possible to randomize the world? Thus, playing as any particular faction will never present the same initial position twice. The option to fight on the historical map should clearly be retained.

From a MP perspective, wouldn't it be nice if Vanya could take a Huron or Iroqoise army of tomahawk chukkas and send them, wave after wave, to take the scalps of Buddhist warrior monks while they play around with their little portable shrine, all while using ships taken from the British to bombard the beaches said monks are praying on while mercenary English Kinigits that smell of elderberries waddle in from the sea to surprise them? The mere thought of it sends a shiver down Vanya's headless spine!

GAH!

[Nowake]

Drop a note more often Vanya, the head-chopping season is year-round after all.
Oh and, while in principle I would frown on such an option, in this particular case randomization would bring a great many memories of a long-forgotten lil' gem of a game called Imperialism II, which was the cosiest TBS ever; takes me back.

[MDPR]

I agree in the following.

In the TWC thread, Craig specifically said "features" so I'll leave the era and locale alone.

Regarding features...

1) If/when you return to the age of sail or beyond, I'd like to see coastal battles, with ships acting like off-map artillery. For example, if an army in Empire makes an amphibious landing, the army can land but uses all its movement points. So it can't move off the beach until the next turn. Well, if you're defending, and you attack an army on the beach in that situation, the battle should take place on a coastal map, with any neighboring ships displayed in the water, and you should be able to trigger a cannonade (like as a general special ability, on a timer) that brings up an AoE cursor to target the bombardment.

2) If/when you return to a colonial period, it would be nice if you included the entire globe, not just little trade theatres like the Ivory Coast. Even if it were just coastal provinces, I'd like to be able to land, take over or build a trade castle, and possibly have to defend those with regular army units. So, you wouldn't have to map out the interior of Africa, but at least have a string of colonial provinces along the coast instead of just those anchorages/trade nodes.

3) I really miss the ability to award titles to units, as you could in MTW. You've gone a long way to bringing that back, first in Empire (with the government ministers), and now even closer in Shogun 2 (with the ability to award up to 4 commissions to specific generals). I'd like maybe a few more commissions/titles for generals (for example, in MTW, you could award a province governorship AND a privy council title), and they titles were appropriately named for each faction (which won't apply in a game like Shogun but probably would if you return to Europe). But I'd also like the ability to award battle honors after particularly awesome victories. For example, right now in Shogun 2, if you have some kind (not sure if it's Heroic or Decisive, or something else) victory, a little gold monument appears on the campaign map, and you can hover over it to see who faught who, what year, what the name of the battle was, etc. Well, when you win a battle that triggers the creation of monument like that, I'd also like the ability to grant (or have automatically granted based on kill/death ratios) battle honors to specific, individual units. Battle honors would add something to the units stats (+2 morale or +1 Melee Attack). This would help distinguish individual units. I really liked how in Empire each unit was numbered and you could change their names. In Shogun 2 you can't do that. All units are anonymous, and except for experience, they're all the same. I find I don't care for my Shogun 2 units anywhere near as much as I did for my Empire units, and I'm sure it's because there's no way to distinguish one from another.

4) In Shogun 2, you named the prefecture capitals, but not the ports, farms, etc. In Empire, every building in a region had a name (Oxford, Lyon, etc.). Shogun 2 feels more anonymous because of this, and that decreases my engagement.

5) Be sure to retain the 4 season turn format, no matter what future games have as a start and end date. The number of turns between the arbitrary start and end dates is immaterial. The immersion and beauty that comes with 1 turn / season, and the added tactical variety it can add to battles, is just too good to give up again.

6) Significantly increase the default range of ships, and moderately increase the range of agents, and somewhat increase the range of armies on the campaign map. The first thing I do when I get a new TW game is see if there's a Darth Mod for it yet, because one of the usual improvements that mod makes is to increase the range of units, especially ships starting with Empire. The default ranges are always rediculously short, especially for ships, and it's SO frustrating. Please talk to Darth, figure out what methodology he uses to determine the ranges, and adopt something close to that as the default in future TW games.

7) Brainstorm some way of incorporating the Avatar system into the single-player game. As a diehard SP player, I'm never going to use MP, but I like where you were going with the customization and personalization of an avatar on the MP side. It would be great if the SP side could benefit from that too.

8) The Ninja movies are great. I'm so glad they're back. They're a lot more attractive than the ones in RTW and M2TW and more interesting in their settings, methods, etc. Please retain these in future TW games.

9) If multiple generals are present in the same stack, allow all of them to get experience from victories. Even if you set up a heirarchy, where the top guy gets 100%, and the 2nd highest ranking guy gets 80% and so on, that would be cool.

10) It would be even cooler if allied units on the same battlefield could benefit from the bonuses of their general. For example, in S2, you can develop your generals to be good with cavalry vs. infantry, offense vs. defense, etc. Let's say I have 2 stacks from my own faction one that's mostly infantry and led by a general with infantry bonuses, and another mostly cavalry with a general with cavalry bonuses. They both fight in the same battle, and since they're both from my faction, I control them on the battlefield. Well, I'd like the infantry to get the bonuses from their general and the cavalry to get the bonuses from THEIR general. Conversely, you could allow for all general bonuses to apply to all units in a stack if a stack has multiple generals. This would be similar to the way some of the Commissioner bonuses apply to all units while some apply only to units in a stack led by that particular general.

11) It would be cool if you could add in some kind of dedicated troop transport ship class. In Empire, it always felt a bit unfair that I could transport 20 units on a single Sloop, or in Shogun 2, on a bow kobaya.

[Jungle Rhino]

Great thread and looks like Craig has been paying attention with the upcoming inclusion of naval bombardment in FotS!!!

My 2c is ROME 2!!!! Basically just take Shogun 2 and have it make sweet love with Europa Barbarorum to make an amazing beautiful Rome 2 baby. I'll quit my job, become a recluse and play it until the day I die :)

One idea though, and it would work with what other people are saying about characterisation of veteran units etc. would be for them to pick up the odd piece of captured equipment when they defeat their enemies. The historical precedent would be something like Hannibal's African spearmen who near the end of his campaigne were rocking round in nice fancy Roman armour they had 'borrowed' from their victims. Also highly appropriate for something like Alexander the Great as he adopted much of the Persian dress after spending years swanning around the Near East. You'd need to implement this subtley or you would lose the flavour of your orginal unit, but if done well I think it would be really neat. Note this would note have any game effect and would be purely for aesthetic reasons :)

[Nowake]

Hey Jungle Rhino, welcome to the .Org old boy

Basically just take Shogun 2 and have it make sweet love with Europa Barbarorum to make an amazing beautiful Rome 2 baby.

I see you're a family man!

[Jaabberwocky]

I would vote for a Warring States period of China, similar to what they did with Shogun 2 and it's focus on Japan only.

[Marshall Louis-Nicolas Davout]

I really think they should make a sequel to Napoleon total war, it was fantastic, including the mods, I'd like a Napoleonic total war 2.