Your own TW style game: What features would you like to see?

[Arjos]

When they re-declared war upon me I had already conquered all Anatolia!

Could be that the KH besieged Byzantion, iirc Pontos has a script to declare war on whoever attacks it...

[green jacket]

Here's some features i would love to see

Supply lines

When your armys are in the field they need to maintain a supply line, used abit liketrade routes in etw and ntw, negative effects happen when a enemy army attacks the supply line, lack of roads, army leaves the road, winter, length from city. Supply lines would originate from the nearest allied city (maybe some exception could be suggested). It would encourage smaller armies to raid/protect a larger armies supply lines. Armies under 6-8 units would not need a supply line as they would survive on the country side and FM traits could affect this. A bonus to supply would also be given if your army is in one of your own provinces.

Supply lines that clash with a enemys would result in half the amount of supply for all armies effected. Also for a supply line to pass through another factions province requires military access, however enemy provinces can always be used as a supply route. Supply lines can also use trade routes that use ports, however they require an allied or occupied port. So if your army is in a enemy province (surrounded by unusable trade routes) you would have to have a single unit in the port tile for it to be used as a supply line.

Broken or weak supply lines would mean attrition to units and lowered morale. General guard units would be the only unit that would not be affected (seeing the FM would pay for his units food ect).

Also light cavalry that raid these lines would have the most effect, followed by light infantry & skirmishers, then archers, then heavy cavalry and finally heavy infantry being the most usless at this role (to encourage realistic use of units, heavy units would most likely be used for large battles not raiding supply lines). Also the number of units that attack a supply line will have different effects. Only 1 or 2 units attacking the supply line wont have much effect, with about 10-15 units having the most by effectively cutting them completely. Any more than 10-15 units across the *entire* supply line would have no extra effect. When using ships to attack naval supply lines faster (so usually cheeper ships) would have a better effect than full size war ships.

Also kind of copying from fable 2 & 3 the supply line would be seen by a kind of golden breadcrumb trail, the more intact and shorter the supply line the more solid, the weaker or more raided the supply line the less solid.

Unit traits

Units that do well in a battle or survive multiple battles could gain traits such to improve their base stats due to experience, however they would only last a max of 18-20 years depending on the factions soldiers period of service. This would include a unit that gets routed being known as cowards by fellow soldiers and receiving something like minus 1/2 morale for the next battle or two until they prove themselves. Also if a faction loses a eagle ect they could have negative traits that will stay with the unit for its life, however being slowly reduced as the event is slowly forgotten.

Unit officers

Each unit with individual officers that could have a max of 5 traits could provide more realistic generals when FM aren't present. Also could effect unit traits. Their traits would be similar to the traits their units gain. Also could be swapped between units however each starts with a specialisation to the unit they're recruited with and would take time to specialise to a new unit with only a max of two avaliable at any time (for example being specialised with just heavy infy or spearmen and light inf ect). Officers in a kind of unit they're not specialised in will result in negative results such as -1 morale or -2 defense to missle fire ect. Also a officer will always keep a specialisation to the unit theyre recruited with, and only will the second specialisation ever be replaced. Im thinking 1-2 years in game time to gain a specialisation

Eagles/holy totems

Eagles that act more like seige weapons as in they can be dropped or picked up. Units that loose their eagle get negative traits as do their generals. Factions that caputure them can also attach them to a unit and use it for a bonus in battles. Also a mission to return it to a capital city if a eagle is captured or to recapture it if lost, before it gets taken to the enemy capital city could be activated. This could also include other objects such as celtic holy object ect. Once a object is in a city it can also provide that city with bonuses, such as income (due to tourism to see a fabled object), public order (due to nationalistic pride) or even a bonus for a short time to the whole factions public order. The whole time the object could be swapped between units ect.

[Ibrahim]

Really? Seems interesting to me. Especially because I don't understand that, in the course of six (6) games of the TW series, CA seemingly didn't manage to think of hardly any of the things discussed in this thread. Lest for sea battles, of course.

I only just now noticed this, so I will respond now:

RTW (or at least BI) does allow for naval battles. though it has to be done "outside the box". it has been done since August of last year-though alas the details I am not sure of:

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...=naval+battles

[Ludens]

I can't find the link right now, but A TWC modding news round-up contained screenshots of R:TW naval battles more than five years ago. That's the last I heard of that mod, though. I imagine the battles were just chariots modded to look like boats, running around on a blue field.

[Leon the Batavian]

Don't know if this has been mentioned before but for MP I wish you and I in one campaign could do our things simultaneously. I think its technically impossible but still if this is a wishlist real or fictional that would be great I think.

And I want a huge map with the whole world on it with each and every ancient time nation and society. What happened during antiquity in the Americas or China ?

[Oddnerd]

Oh man, I could write an essay, but I shall stick to those things that I found RTW in general lacking, and that would make EB even more top tier.

1 - More complex Rebel faction system. In RTW and EB the rebels were a single faction with generally one hivemind. EB attempted to give the feel that they were independent city states with the scripted events that control the Lusitanni-Celtiberian alliance or the Sinope/Crimean-KH alliance and that did help a bit. If it was possible at all to take it further and give independent city states (or at least the ones of import) some scripted behaviours that make them act more independent and even allow them to be individually allied to certain factions, then that would be a great way to add to the depth of the game.

2 - Hiring units based on your alliances. Instead of having to rely on naturally replenishing mercenaries, if your alliances could generate a separate pool of soldiers that could be hired that would be cool. I would only want this if it were realistic. EX - an alliance with the averni could grant the romans a modest supply of lower tier celtic units and a small amount of elites (with marked-up mercenary price). Since the Romans had a tendency to equip their celts in a superior manner to the celts themselves, maybe the units could be inherent to each factions techtree, but one requirement could be an alliance with a faction of a certain culture. The only difference between this and capturing an allied state is that you would not need to go to war and take another factions territory with a specific culture - as was the case when I had to invade parts of gaul to get helvetti units and neitos.

3 - Less bloodthirsty AI. I thought that aside from the inevitable "Territorial Expansion" penalty in ETW, the Empire political engine was pretty solid, I could actually have an ally who participated in battles and who didn't backstab me the second he was close enough to see me.

4 - Better AI tendency towards naval invasons. As KH and Casse I was nigh-unkillable because no one ever came to Rhodes or Krete, or Britain

5 - I don't know if this is more or less historical, but I don't particularly like the patron god temples with specific traits. I think every faction should have a generic temple line that improves certain things based on the religion as a whole, rather than specific deities. In RTW it was stupid what sorts of things came from a certain temple (weapon upgrades for example), and in EB you find that in some cases one temple is completely better than the other - they can both add the same happiness bonus, but then one has an extra law bonus of up to 20%, or more trade income. We also know that the morale bonus is largely worthless. I would rather have either a single temple line for each faction (bonuses should vary between factions), or allow each level of temple to be converted the same level temple of a different God, with maybe 1 turn per conversion, since building a temple up from the ground is annoying when you just want to get a different statue inside.

I'll be back to harass you all with more soon, but I have a Mol Bio test :S

[antisocialmunky]

Let us not forget that a little boobage is nice too.

[TheLastDays]

Oh man, I could write an essay, but I shall stick to those things that I found RTW in general lacking, and that would make EB even more top tier.

1 - More complex Rebel faction system. In RTW and EB the rebels were a single faction with generally one hivemind. EB attempted to give the feel that they were independent city states with the scripted events that control the Lusitanni-Celtiberian alliance or the Sinope/Crimean-KH alliance and that did help a bit. If it was possible at all to take it further and give independent city states (or at least the ones of import) some scripted behaviours that make them act more independent and even allow them to be individually allied to certain factions, then that would be a great way to add to the depth of the game.

2 - Hiring units based on your alliances. Instead of having to rely on naturally replenishing mercenaries, if your alliances could generate a separate pool of soldiers that could be hired that would be cool. I would only want this if it were realistic. EX - an alliance with the averni could grant the romans a modest supply of lower tier celtic units and a small amount of elites (with marked-up mercenary price). Since the Romans had a tendency to equip their celts in a superior manner to the celts themselves, maybe the units could be inherent to each factions techtree, but one requirement could be an alliance with a faction of a certain culture. The only difference between this and capturing an allied state is that you would not need to go to war and take another factions territory with a specific culture - as was the case when I had to invade parts of gaul to get helvetti units and neitos.

3 - Less bloodthirsty AI. I thought that aside from the inevitable "Territorial Expansion" penalty in ETW, the Empire political engine was pretty solid, I could actually have an ally who participated in battles and who didn't backstab me the second he was close enough to see me.

4 - Better AI tendency towards naval invasons. As KH and Casse I was nigh-unkillable because no one ever came to Rhodes or Krete, or Britain

5 - I don't know if this is more or less historical, but I don't particularly like the patron god temples with specific traits. I think every faction should have a generic temple line that improves certain things based on the religion as a whole, rather than specific deities. In RTW it was stupid what sorts of things came from a certain temple (weapon upgrades for example), and in EB you find that in some cases one temple is completely better than the other - they can both add the same happiness bonus, but then one has an extra law bonus of up to 20%, or more trade income. We also know that the morale bonus is largely worthless. I would rather have either a single temple line for each faction (bonuses should vary between factions), or allow each level of temple to be converted the same level temple of a different God, with maybe 1 turn per conversion, since building a temple up from the ground is annoying when you just want to get a different statue inside.

I'll be back to harass you all with more soon, but I have a Mol Bio test :S

Well, all nice ideas for a seperate game, but since you mentioned implementing them in EB:

1,2 are not possible to do, withing the RTW engine, I think. I'm certain about option #1. I mean, scripted events and all that is possible but to give every rebel state the possibility to ally individually with the player, they would all need to be seperate factions and there's not (nearly) enough faction slots for doing that. #2 might be possible but I doubt it.

3) well the AI is moddable in M2TW, so we'll see what they come up with

4) Bi.exe does solve this a bit ;) - I consistently have the KH attack Taras when playing Rome xD

5) Well... I don't really mind the current system. There were different main gods and holy sites in reality and it adds to the RP element, imo.

[Lvcretivs]

Just a thought, but how about implementing a modified WEGO system of synchronous Player/AI order execution regarding the 'strategic layer'? Surely, the time increments covered by turns would have to be reduced (two weeks?), movement allowances would have to be carefully modified (realistic rate of advance based on army composition) and some sort of aesthetically pleasing 'route planning interface' devised, but the added strategical depth (campaign multiplayer ) would surely be interesting.

[Stark]

Just a thought, but how about implementing a modified WEGO system of synchronous Player/AI order execution regarding the 'strategic layer'? Surely, the time increments covered by turns would have to be reduced (two weeks?), movement allowances would have to be carefully modified (realistic rate of advance based on army composition) and some sort of aesthetically pleasing 'route planning interface' devised, but the added strategical depth (campaign multiplayer ) would surely be interesting.

I would love that.

[Ibrahim]

Just a thought, but how about implementing a modified WEGO system of synchronous Player/AI order execution regarding the 'strategic layer'? Surely, the time increments covered by turns would have to be reduced (two weeks?), movement allowances would have to be carefully modified (realistic rate of advance based on army composition) and some sort of aesthetically pleasing 'route planning interface' devised, but the added strategical depth (campaign multiplayer ) would surely be interesting.

I do have one problem: would there be an un-clunky way of transitioning from turn to real time based gameplay when two armies clash?

otherwise, perfect!

[vartan]

I do have one problem: would there be an un-clunky way of transitioning from turn to real time based gameplay when two armies clash?

otherwise, perfect!

Yeah. That's what I was thinking. But you see simultaneous-execution gameplay in games like Warlight (like Risk). They're not bad, but they're well-tailored to such games, or the rest of the game works well with that clock feature. Don't know if a TW-like system can manage with that. Not sure. Definitely better in theory than having every player take turns one at a time (not realistic).

[antisocialmunky]

Simultaneous turns where you plan out all your moves at distinct intervals kinda like American football sims.

[Ptolemaios]

This is something I think you could actually do. When you have a crushing defeat you should lose money,
because your soldiers left there weapons on the field or your opponent raided your camp, which you couldn´t defend.
In addition the faction you lost against should get the same amount of money, of course. The same occurs when you
have a heroic victory. You could make the amount of money referring to the upkeep cost of the defeated army. The more
elite a unit is the more expencive equipment an more money they have to lose. I think this would make battles more decisive,
but I have no idea how much it would effect the AI and it´s money scripts...

[Ludens]

There already is such a thing for EB1: search for the "spoils of victory" submod. However, the way you describe it isn't very realistic. Yes, the camp will be looted, but it's unlikely a substantial part of the state treasury is kept there. The profit comes from looting the possessions of rich soldiers, not the state. In most cases, it was the citizens rather than the state who bought the expensive bits of equipment, so the state wouldn't be out of cash for lost weaponry. Anyway, what would fleeing soldiers leave behind? Shields, perhaps (and I only know that for certain about the heavy hoplite shield), and pikes probably. Both of which were fairly cheap. Expensive equipment, like swords and armour, doesn't impede running very much.

Also, you are assuming the looters would obediently yield their plunder to the commanding general, who would then sell it for full-market value and donate the proceeds to the state treasury. In reality, with the Romans at least, the general would keep a good share, and divide the rest amongst his men. The spoils of victory went to the army, not the state.

[Marshall Louis-Nicolas Davout]

My TW game...

Ok, First ,Bigger armies and Biggger maps. More reaslitic units in the game, like Shogun 2 really.

Money - Should be coming dpeneding on industry. One thing I found in the total war games were there were buildings that deveopled your industry and gained access to new technological advances, it weren't meantioned there. I'd make sure that buildings make a contribution to your industry.

Millitary buldings: They should aslo have advances, like researching this technology or that, and vets should be added.

Generals can now have more speeches, or you can type it in. Its the same with diplomacy I guess, I would like to write something to them.

AI should help you ,not stack loads of armies agasint you.

Battle victories should be depended on how you fought, so once you have finished a battle, you will be given a option to see it in real time movie player or whatever, and it will present you in a view as if you've never seen before, the general making his speech and the troops moving, you can zoom to any part of the battlefield. And of course, you can save Replays

More reaslitinesss in campagains. Fleets shoiuld be more of a millitary standard. and you should be able to upgrade and have better fleets.


Once you have conqerued a province, you have two choices: Recruit their units or don't recurit it.

Mercanerys/ They are well important in TW games and I would have them.

We should see more of the commenoers , you can create stories, then put it into the game and watch it, like ''Samurai vs Samurai '', of course,there will be a built in feature for that.

And Modding: There should be a modding menu which allows you to download as many TW mods as you want. You should be able to play agasint people who have modded their games and this should not cause much of a excuse.

Historical accuiracy: Make it even more hisotrically accruate.

[asugrynd]

How about if you take over a province you get control of tribes who historically lived there and be able to 'use' the land?

-Being able to lay out traderoutes by yourself to these tribes (or allied provinces nearby).
-Keeping control and peace between the different tribes within each region, this will bring in more depth and chaos to the whole war, rather then straight on attacking other factions.
Then also your diplomats will be more usefull (atleast that's what I think) and they will have had an amount of training when dealing with the 'big guys'.
-Having groups of civilians/slaves led by a noble or a tribe work up defensive hills, moats etc. (within reason ofcourse).

What will be the uses of these tribes?

- You can demand (emergency) taxes.
- You can bring a 'call to arms' meaning every tribe will send you a few (free?) troops which can only stay in the region (perhaps except in special circumstances?), this could tip the balance any time anywhere when attacking or defending and make the war a bit unpredictable.
- They could give a wider supply of new sons and daughters to marry into the ruling family (the opposite of sending a daughter to them to keep the local chieftain happy might be interesting.)
- If they are pleased they may send out troops to deal with rebels? Or become rebellious against you themselves. (You can only enjoy crushing rebel-armies popping up for so long)
- Uncovering/producing resources if they grow powerfull enough under your rule maybe?
- The option for selecting chieftains/generals among a list of candidates of these tribes instead of randomly having one recruited?

What's their influence on the region?

- They are responsible for a % of public order (wether that's displayed as the order in a capital or a very own version of regional order is up to the modders I guess).
- They could have fights amongst eachother, not something you necesarily have to deal with except perhaps on occasions when things get out of hand.
- Enemy factions could assault these tribes aswell for quick cash, wether you can protect them or not may reflect on how they will like your presence.
- What if a network of spies get's into these tribes and they rat them out, or buy all the lies that have been spread against your superior rule?
- Perhaps how easy trade goes and how likely it is rebels will pop up alltogether?

Possible perks.

- They could have their own demands, which noble family will rule the tribe, under your rule?
The local chief or a puppet whom his strings you are pulling?
- Obviously the chance they resent to pay taxes to the point where they take up arms against you.
- Demand money/protection after some storm wrecked their barracks.

This is just a few suggestions what's all possible and I think though a huge work in itself that it may yet make the game interesting every single round.
(Though proper balancing of complaints or praise from these tribes might be wise ofcourse.)

Peace, (as if that's gonna happen.)

[KyodaiSteeleye]

Well, there's lots of things that would improve the game, but one of my bugbears is lack of unit limits, and on the counter-side, having to wait for ages to build high-end units.

I think this may already being implemented in EBII, but having a limit on high-end units would be more realistic, and would also stop human players from dominating battles by using elite troop-spam. So, for heavy-cavarly, there maybe should be a limit of one unit per province owned, and so on down for professional units, with maybe only militia's being unlimited. Limiting numbers by province would also help - so you can't spam all your heavy cavalry allocation from one province, but need to raise each unit in the province that has the allocation for it.

On the other hand, it pisses me off that I have to wait three-quarters of the game to get to some high-end units, which would be available to a tribe without such massive requirements. Therefore, maybe in conjunction with the above, I'd make far more units available at lower barracks levels, but change it so that more advanced barracks allowed greater numbers of higher-end units to be maintained, rather than allowing better units to be built. I'd prefer that only reforms/political/sociological changes make new unit types available.

[Populus Romanus]

On the other hand, it pisses me off that I have to wait three-quarters of the game to get to some high-end units, which would be available to a tribe without such massive requirements. Therefore, maybe in conjunction with the above, I'd make far more units available at lower barracks levels, but change it so that more advanced barracks allowed greater numbers of higher-end units to be maintained, rather than allowing better units to be built. I'd prefer that only reforms/political/sociological changes make new unit types available.

I always disliked the fact that you had to build up huge barracks to recruit units that should be available from the start (historically). However, a unit limit doesn't seem right. The most logical answer would be to jack up upkeep so high that there would be a de fact unit limit without actually putting one in place. Unit limits limit the fun in a game because it tightens the already narrow limits imposed by the game mechanics onto the player.

[Horatius]

Here are mine off the top of my head.

1. Make cultural aspects of the factions matter and have an impact on the game. Here are some examples.
a. Marriage. Not all cultures were monarchies; and I simply eye roll when asked to confirm a spouse as a Roman, Celtic, or Greek faction; and here is why. Roman culture didn't have the senate deciding on who a young woman married; if her father was alive he decided; if not it was her decision (but if she was very young her mother would handle the first marriage). Either way me as consul/senate/even emperor should not be managing the private lives of every single person of importance; should I also arrive at their houses in the morning to dress them and brush their teeth? In Greek cultures a woman's kyrios (father, brother, uncles, sons) decided on her marriage not her archon. I could go on but the marriage thing has to turn automatic in cultures where the government did not decide.

b. Fertility. Why not reflect on actual social conditions to determine fertility and why should high fertility always be a blessing? EB was right to remove the end Roman Civil war for being overtly biased; but high fertility in royal families was a recipe for civil war. The most famous example is Caesar's intervention in a Ptolemaic Civil War; where too many children meant a faction split. Culture should have a direct effect on fertility; while some (i.e. Roman) makes fertility stay always at a very low rate (reflecting the liberal nature of Roman Marriage Sine Manu, apathy towards male heirs when adoption through a will did the same thing etc) while others like the Sweboz should have a very high birthrate (reflecting Tacitus' account of the idealistic nature of their marriages and polygamy; p.s. I regret that more isn't known about Germanic Tribes from bc years). Each culture had civil wars for it's own reasons; and fertility as one source shouldn't be overlooked.

Greed and ideology as causes of civil wars. With fertility I went over what should cause stability drops in the more monarchic cultures (I just used Germans as a random example for higher fertility; I know their tribes had high levels of democracy) but the republics and oligarchic states (except Rome most of this time period and Carthage) had their own problems with civil war. A minor but important example is the many times Dumnorix was pardoned before his brother apparently died and Caesar just had enough of him. From a distance it looks like Dumnorix had his ambition shattered by his brother being Vergobert and made deals with every foreign power that could give him an opportunity. According to the total war engine that was such a rarity it shouldn't even be reflected slightly; according to everyone else it would be nice if nobles of all cultures made deals with foreign powers and even tried to seize controll of the faction by creating a new one with the same name.

c. Farming. The only culture where capturing the main cities would mean control of the population was Carthage. In the ancient world most people lived in the country and this should be reflected by many obstacles you need to capture outside of the city; in fact cities should be parasitic; while the country land should be very hard to take and maintain without some reforms done in the land. No control of the farmland? Well no profit except for Carthaginians then. All a city should do is allow you to collect tax and allow recruitment past levies (reflecting state arms control) but without the mini obstacles representing control out of a city taken there should simply be no tax to collect. Trade depended on agriculture; no food no money in the city to purchase luxury goods so again no countryside no tax.

d. Surrender-Cities often needed to neither be starved nor stormed when in a hopeless situation. It would be nice to see non-Roman culture reflected; because only the Romans would force enemies to go through every city before agreeing they were defeated.

e. I mentioned the roman exception plenty of times so here should be the roman and carthaginian weakness. severe penalties for losing Rome or Carthage to reflect the historical importance those two exceptional cities have. They both have great advantages if you factor in culture; they should have that extreme weakness.

[asugrynd]

OH I forgot something rather important!!!!

Trees that get transparant when you get closer to them with the camera!

I've had a battle too many in the woods where I couldn't see a thing of what was happening, so trees becoming transparant would be nice.. or atleast make the computer stumble around in the woods aswell if that isn't possible.