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

[stratigos vasilios]

Complete west (Iberia/West Africa) to east (Asia) map set in the EB era. Add north to south to that too. Would be amazing, but alas not possible.

[vartan]

I say let the game be gamey .

The simulationist approach would bog down the TW experience with irrelevant and uninteresting detail ( for most players ) .

If the game is good "out of the box" , I guess the good modding folks would then give us the excellent , polished ( and niche ) TW experience . EB proves beyond doubt this point , even with the hard-coded severe limitations and handicaps of the RTW engine/game taken into account .

But for a "gamey" TW game to be good , a good tactical and strategic AI is absolutely required .

But I'm under the impression that nowadays the TW games are not even "mod-able" , are they ?

Oh well ..

Satyros

So, for marketing purposes and whatnot, would you say that a simulationist approach would not sell to as wide an audience as a more gamey​ approach to such a video game?

Complete west (Iberia/West Africa) to east (Asia) map set in the EB era. Add north to south to that too. Would be amazing, but alas not possible.

And why is it impossible to have a game with such a large map? There are already strategy games that cover the entire globe. Whether it's smart computing-wise is another matter entirely!

[Hannibal Khan the Great]

In fact, there's already a mod for eu: Rome that includes that area you specified, in EB's timeframe...

[Satyros]

So, for marketing purposes and whatnot, would you say that a simulationist approach would not sell to as wide an audience as a more gamey​ approach to such a video game?

Well , yes and I'm only stating the obvious here .

I won't claim that I know exactly the numbers of players who enjoy Vanilla RTW / EB RTW but judging from my own little circle of gamers , most won't be bothered to explore the excellent game that EB is .

They would do that with other games ( Paradox grand strategy games , for example ) , but is seems that they find EB "too complex for a TW game" . It seems that some people just want to win easy , cinematic battles combined with a sort of lame strategically campaign . Or , to put it mildly , EB is not your average War-/strategy- game . It takes more time than the base game ( RTW ) , rewards the players who pay attention to detail , it's much more enjoyable if you happen to be a "history-nerd" , all in all it has a rather specific audience .

Now , I'm not saying that EB is the epitome of simulationist games , but it is much further down that path than your "regular Vanilla RTW" .

I try not to bring this up every single time I write in this forum , but every single time I cannot avoid it ( sorry fellas , don't want to nag or anything ) :

Just imagine where would EB be if there weren't the faults in the A.I.

Or even RTW for that matter .

Nowadays I play many paradox grand strategies , just because they play "smarter" , but - to be a bit "sentimental" - I miss my TW games .

To be precise , I miss the post-MTW /pre-RTW era . The game I was expecting then was never delivered by the good people of CA . Passed on ETW etc , haven't played STW2 yet .

So I still don't ask much from CA ( to return on topic ) . Just some good quality ( and even scalable - to cater for the needs of all kinds of players-customers ) tactical and strategic A.I. and ( if they would be so kind ) some room for creative ( ---> modding ) freedom for the good guys such as those who have given us the spectacular ( and always fresh ) EB game .

Everyone happy .












I can't stress enough that I value equally the historical accuracy with the enhanced gameplay in EB . At the end of the day , the latter is what brings me back to this game years after its earlier releases , and to put it bluntly , if EB sucked gameplay-wise I wouldn't play it . The historical accuracy is a GLORIOUS bonus .

Thank the gods for EB

Satyros

[stratigos vasilios]

And why is it impossible to have a game with such a large map? There are already strategy games that cover the entire globe. Whether it's smart computing-wise is another matter entirely!

I meant in the same depth (faction and settlement wise) as EB. Including more than the limited amount of hardcoded factions, hence the impossibility.

In fact, there's already a mod for eu: Rome that includes that area you specified, in EB's timeframe...

I'm interested, what's it called? I've played the Eras TW Conquest mod for M2TW if that's what your talking about?

[Kival]

He's speaking about a mod for Europa Universalis: Rome not about a TW-Game.

[stratigos vasilios]

Ah thanks. I'll look it up, for the record ErasTWC isn't too bad either. It's no EB... but it's ok.

[vartan]

I meant in the same depth (faction and settlement wise) as EB. Including more than the limited amount of hardcoded factions, hence the impossibility.

Argument doesn't really hold since your own "TW style game" need not have any limit on the amount of factions.

[moonburn]

people should make a list of all the ideas here and present them to either the team or creative assembly there´s many good ideas for development of future expansion packs (yeah yeah yeah i wanna play the steppes total war and politk total war where wining a batle might cost you the war)

[bobbin]

There is a whole thread started by CA for that very reason over on the TWC.

[Centurio Nixalsverdrus]

There is a whole thread started by CA for that very reason over on the TWC.

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.

[Satyros]

Hm there is something I'd like to see implemented in the series , even more so retrofitted in MTW2/RTW ( yeah , right ) :

I can understand the need in giving ( "under the table" ) the A.I. factions more money from an "out of game" perspective , but there's no need to cancel any "in game" effect of military victories in diplomatic negotiations .

Sure , help ( financially ) the A.I. get back on its feet after yet another devastating defeat on the field of battle , but give the player the joy of cashing in these overwhelming victories diplomatically by keeping a kind of "victory points score" or something similar.

Satyros

[Spazticated]

I'd like to see an in game unit creator/editor, such that you can alter the equipment of soldiers or create new units entirely depending on your factions culture, infrastructure and resources.

So you could for example, if you are the Greeks, have a certain amount of equipment, armour and weapons and even traits that you would have access to, to begin with and gradually as you conquer neighboring factions you would add more equipment to your pool for creating new types of soldiers. Which is something that bugs me about these total war games, that you can't take something that other factions/cultures do well, and incorporate it into your own faction once you've conquered them, something like when you start getting hoplites in chainmail in the original EB.

Lets take a unit of Spartans for example, there would be a trait called "Spartan" which while giving great benefits, ups the recruitment cost and upkeep to match, these soldiers would be wearing bronze muscle breastplates which would also up the costs but would grant the trait "Well Armoured" when coupled with greaves, but if you conquer Rome and thus the facilities used to produce roman chainmail, you would add chainmail to your pool of equipment which you can then armour your Spartans with.

But if you conquer Thrace for example and gain access to Falxes, you would at first only be able to train your new Greek Falxmen in Thrace where the blacksmiths can produce Falxes and the populace would know how to use them, your Falxmen would need a trait like "Dacian" or "Thracian" to make good use of falxes until you build up your training grounds and blacksmiths in Sparta before you could have "Spartan" falxmen. This would also extend to cavalry and elephants and siege equipment and naval units, ect. This customization would also include colours and symbols, like what the symbols units would have on their shields and the colour of their tunics, uniformity would be expensive, though, as I believe it was historically.

If we are doing anything but play this game historically accurate (which would be boring as hell) why shouldn't the Germans be able to train their own Cataphracts if the conquer Asia minor? If I wanted to play the Greeks like Spartans were dominant, I could throw the "Spartan" trait on the entire Greek unit roster, make their tunics/togas and cloaks crimson and paint a lambda symbol on all of their shields if I had the gold to afford to do that, it would certainly liven up Multiplayer matches if one player was the neon pink, bunny shielded Celts, versus the jet black, galactic empire shielded Egyptians.

[vartan]

I'd like to see an in game unit creator/editor, such that you can alter the equipment of soldiers or create new units entirely depending on your factions culture, infrastructure and resources.

So you could for example, if you are the Greeks, have a certain amount of equipment, armour and weapons and even traits that you would have access to, to begin with and gradually as you conquer neighboring factions you would add more equipment to your pool for creating new types of soldiers. Which is something that bugs me about these total war games, that you can't take something that other factions/cultures do well, and incorporate it into your own faction once you've conquered them, something like when you start getting hoplites in chainmail in the original EB.

Lets take a unit of Spartans for example, there would be a trait called "Spartan" which while giving great benefits, ups the recruitment cost and upkeep to match, these soldiers would be wearing bronze muscle breastplates which would also up the costs but would grant the trait "Well Armoured" when coupled with greaves, but if you conquer Rome and thus the facilities used to produce roman chainmail, you would add chainmail to your pool of equipment which you can then armour your Spartans with.

But if you conquer Thrace for example and gain access to Falxes, you would at first only be able to train your new Greek Falxmen in Thrace where the blacksmiths can produce Falxes and the populace would know how to use them, your Falxmen would need a trait like "Dacian" or "Thracian" to make good use of falxes until you build up your training grounds and blacksmiths in Sparta before you could have "Spartan" falxmen. This would also extend to cavalry and elephants and siege equipment and naval units, ect. This customization would also include colours and symbols, like what the symbols units would have on their shields and the colour of their tunics, uniformity would be expensive, though, as I believe it was historically.

If we are doing anything but play this game historically accurate (which would be boring as hell) why shouldn't the Germans be able to train their own Cataphracts if the conquer Asia minor? If I wanted to play the Greeks like Spartans were dominant, I could throw the "Spartan" trait on the entire Greek unit roster, make their tunics/togas and cloaks crimson and paint a lambda symbol on all of their shields if I had the gold to afford to do that, it would certainly liven up Multiplayer matches if one player was the neon pink, bunny shielded Celts, versus the jet black, galactic empire shielded Egyptians.

Would you envision this as something along the lines of unit creation/customization much like character customization in (MMO)RPGs? or something completely different? I imagined it similar to RPGs except with drag-drop or a similar user-friendly interface that has a real-time counter of the unit cost that the resulting unit would have, and so on. For instance, there could also be a training rating index, such that the unit would be more powerful but costly depending on how much training was put in. Its time-to-produce/recruit would also be dependent on its training rating. In fact, depending on how the training rating index-versus-cost curve looked like, you could find a "sweet spot" for every combination. I don't know, just a thought.

[Spazticated]

Would you envision this as something along the lines of unit creation/customization much like character customization in (MMO)RPGs? or something completely different? I imagined it similar to RPGs except with drag-drop or a similar user-friendly interface that has a real-time counter of the unit cost that the resulting unit would have, and so on. For instance, there could also be a training rating index, such that the unit would be more powerful but costly depending on how much training was put in. Its time-to-produce/recruit would also be dependent on its training rating. In fact, depending on how the training rating index-versus-cost curve looked like, you could find a "sweet spot" for every combination. I don't know, just a thought.

Pretty much exactly like I was thinking, a paper doll interface like what you would find in World of Warcraft, you drag your pilos helm to the helm slot, the soldiers armour stats go up but so does the costs in real time, you could also add complexity if at first only 40-50% of the unit was wearing pilos helms, the rest wearing helms from your existing pool, you would have to adjust a slider to increase the uniformity of equipment all the way to 100% but also increase the cost.

[vartan]

Pretty much exactly like I was thinking, a paper doll interface like what you would find in World of Warcraft, you drag your pilos helm to the helm slot, the soldiers armour stats go up but so does the costs in real time, you could also add complexity if at first only 40-50% of the unit was wearing pilos helms, the rest wearing helms from your existing pool, you would have to adjust a slider to increase the uniformity of equipment all the way to 100% but also increase the cost.

Ah...you went one step beyond what I had imagined. I thought we were customizing a unit we would be training afresh. But nay, you speak of refitting a unit at present. That is all the more complex in that, for instance, I may only be able to refit a unit in some ways (not all possible ways) because that unit is near or stationed in some town that can obviously only provide what military equipment it was famous for (or if you want a more complex system, what military equipment it has stockpiled). On that last parenthetical note, imagine you had to manufacture and keep a stock of military equipment. The problem I see with going this far is that not all ancient states had state-manufactured military equipment, at least such is my understanding.

[Spazticated]

Ah...you went one step beyond what I had imagined. I thought we were customizing a unit we would be training afresh. But nay, you speak of refitting a unit at present. That is all the more complex in that, for instance, I may only be able to refit a unit in some ways (not all possible ways) because that unit is near or stationed in some town that can obviously only provide what military equipment it was famous for (or if you want a more complex system, what military equipment it has stockpiled). On that last parenthetical note, imagine you had to manufacture and keep a stock of military equipment. The problem I see with going this far is that not all ancient states had state-manufactured military equipment, at least such is my understanding.

I didn't specify new or retrained units, I don't think, merely how the system would hypothetically work. I suppose, you could create a new unit, give it it's basic load out and more importantly, it's training. For example, create a unit of slingers with the "Rhodian" trait, which could only be trained at Rhodes, once the unit is recruited, you could then only change the equipment, not the traits/training of the unit, these Rhodian slingers could be taken to Rome and outfitted in chainmail, but could not be retrained as anything but slingers.

[vartan]

I didn't specify new or retrained units, I don't think, merely how the system would hypothetically work. I suppose, you could create a new unit, give it it's basic load out and more importantly, it's training. For example, create a unit of slingers with the "Rhodian" trait, which could only be trained at Rhodes, once the unit is recruited, you could then only change the equipment, not the traits/training of the unit, these Rhodian slingers could be taken to Rome and outfitted in chainmail, but could not be retrained as anything but slingers.

Do you suppose people would perceive this as an example of an over-featured asset in a game or rather a plus?

[Spazticated]

Do you suppose people would perceive this as an example of an over-featured asset in a game or rather a plus?

I was thinking on this earlier, what I imagine could be done with a system like this is make the game more player driven, than history driven. You wouldn't need reformations if all the player would need to do is take what would be his pre-Marian Hastati and Principe back to Rome with the requisite buildings/research/whatever and throw them in some new armour to turn them into what is effectively post-Marian Hastati and Principe or he could go into the unit creator and equip, train, and name a new unit exactly like post-Marian Hastati and recruit those alongside the old Hastati.

But to actually answer your question, you could have it as a main game play feature where you essentially let the player loose with a blank soldier canvass and a whole bunch of swords, shields and pointy sticks to make his own unit rosters and otherwise do with as he pleases, or you could give the player his unit roster of historically accurate soldiers and allow the player to tweak and modify load outs a little bit to match his play style or preferences, or somewhere in between those two.

Something closer to the former would certainly be a cinch for modders to work with and if you wanted to play it closer to history, you can, while allowing for the freedom and customization players like me enjoy.

[moonburn]

herm not wanting to nit pick but there was no post marian hastati after mariius you get legionaries since it was the only way the romans had to replace all the "worthy" men they had lost to the germanic advances and most of the men who where left after their "agricultural" revolution only qualified for ascenssi since the great nobles "took" their lands so there was a great increase in lowborn men and a great lack of citizens who qualified for the hastati job

while at the same time the need to maintain regular strong military ocupations of newly conquered lands meant those who did qualify did not want to stay away from their lands since a lost crop meant he couldn´t pay his sons equipment and the empoverishment of his family and thus a reduction of rome´s recruimtnet pool for heavy infantry

[Spazticated]

herm not wanting to nit pick but there was no post marian hastati after mariius you get legionaries since it was the only way the romans had to replace all the "worthy" men they had lost to the germanic advances and most of the men who where left after their "agricultural" revolution only qualified for ascenssi since the great nobles "took" their lands so there was a great increase in lowborn men and a great lack of citizens who qualified for the hastati job

while at the same time the need to maintain regular strong military ocupations of newly conquered lands meant those who did qualify did not want to stay away from their lands since a lost crop meant he couldn´t pay his sons equipment and the empoverishment of his family and thus a reduction of rome´s recruimtnet pool for heavy infantry

My mistake, I never actually play as the Romans, I prefer the Koinon Hellenon or whatever the Greek faction on the Peloponnese is called in whichever mod I happen to be playing, but I knew there was some reforms in there, just replace post-Marian Hastati/Principe with Legionary if you must but the idea remains exactly the same, since either way both units fought in the same manner, the only difference in terms of gameplay are what their equipment was, which I already covered and as I said before, I'd personally like to leave the history up to the individual player in my own TW style game.

[Centurio Nixalsverdrus]

Spazticated, I think your idea is great, but the example with pre / post marians is however not valid.

Moonburn is correct in his statement. The difference between the two units cannot be displayed gameplay-wise just by an armour or training upgrade. This would be wrong, since the higer cost of professional soldiers is not only due to their different equipment, which is not automatically superior to that of a princeps or triarius. Furthermore, the difference between these two concepts is so great that it would just not fit my idea of a historically accurate depiction of the era, even although we are not talking about EB here.

Nevertheless I think your concept is fascinating, albeit perhaps taken a bit too far. Recruitment limited to certain provinces, what we already have in EB, expanded by training and armoury upgrades differing by region.

[Spazticated]

Spazticated, I think your idea is great, but the example with pre / post marians is however not valid.

Moonburn is correct in his statement. The difference between the two units cannot be displayed gameplay-wise just by an armour or training upgrade. This would be wrong, since the higer cost of professional soldiers is not only due to their different equipment, which is not automatically superior to that of a princeps or triarius. Furthermore, the difference between these two concepts is so great that it would just not fit my idea of a historically accurate depiction of the era, even although we are not talking about EB here.

Nevertheless I think your concept is fascinating, albeit perhaps taken a bit too far. Recruitment limited to certain provinces, what we already have in EB, expanded by training and armoury upgrades differing by region.

What I was trying to say is that from a gameplay perspective both hastati and legionaries are both line infantry, with large shields, short thrusting swords and pilum to throw before engaging in melee, so functionally there isn't a difference in how the units would behave, only in how both units came about, but in my example, how they came about would be left to the player, legionaries was just an example of the evolution of unit rosters using the unit creator, imagine that instead of a gladius these "Legionaries" were using sarissa and called "Legionnaires" and instead of roman red, they were wearing the players particular favourite colour which is the direction the player decided to take his faction in.

Of course, the part you seemed to like would apply, you would first need to secure a source of sarissa and grounds with which to train sarissa wielding units before being able to recruit them first in regions with those capabilities before gradually expanding the area of recruitment as the infrastructure improves over time.

Just remember that freedom is the ultimate goal, to take the game off the rails so to speak since we are already altering history, in for a penny in for a pound.

[antisocialmunky]

So I found an awesome mod buried in the mod section of the center....

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=380438

A game that pretty with EB accuracy would be great :D

[Rahl]

So I found an awesome mod buried in the mod section of the center....

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=380438

A game that pretty with EB accuracy would be great :D

Wow, they use a better engine (E:TW) than EB but the units are uglier. Who needs this mod if its ever to be finished?

[fomalhaut]

I'm sorry but EB will always be the epitome of strategy gaming, there's no competition.

[vartan]

I'm sorry but EB will always be the epitome of strategy gaming, there's no competition.

There's potential competition; e.g., a game without the limitations of RTW that takes everything to a whole new level of complexity and ingenuity, and having the EB team work on this game's content.

[illyric]

As everybody else in this forum I would like to see an AI that is not a kamikaze. For example when playing Pontus the Greeks declared war upon me without any provocation. On the other hand the Macedonians, Epirotes and Romans were slaughtering the Greek city-states and had reduced them only to Rhodes and Crete. This is totally unrealistic. A faction that fights for survival can not declare war upon any other faction. Also, when playing Epirrus I had reduced the Romans only to one city in the north (Bonona) and yet they refused becoming a protectorate or peace, so what could I do? I gave an end to them.
Another point I would like to discuss is the battle quality provided by the AI. The only difference between an easy level battle and the one of hard level is the morale of the army. They never try outflanking, they never outmaneuver you. If you are the one attacking they await for you to attack them. If they attack you they come to you in a rather disorderly way. I think (like the most players) that the battles AI should try to be "wiser".
Another thing is attrition. For example when you spend a turn in a desert or a outside your territory during winter some of your soldiers will die as a result of attrition. Of course the units original of Arabia shouldn't suffer summer attrition and those original of the Baltic/Russia have no reason to suffer from winter attrition. On the other hand if the Arabians would go to Russia their winter attrition must be much higher than the units original to (let us say) Rome. If this feature could be enabled it would make the map movement more realistic.
Also Hannibal on his route to Italy crossed the Alps because the normal roads could be easily protected by the Romans. The "Thermopiles" were protected only by 300 Spartans and they could hold for several days. What I mean is that some strategic points like the Thermopiles or "La Brèche de Roland" should be "constructed" so that the player and AI alike should follow some routes that sometimes are longer than usually in order to avoid these obstructions.

BR guys!

[FinnishedBarbarian]

As everybody else in this forum I would like to see an AI that is not a kamikaze. For example when playing Pontus the Greeks declared war upon me without any provocation. On the other hand the Macedonians, Epirotes and Romans were slaughtering the Greek city-states and had reduced them only to Rhodes and Crete. This is totally unrealistic.

Let me guess, you attacked sinope as pontos and triggered a scripted event?

That shouldn't be considered kamikaze behaviour because the koinon represents alliance of city states so it could be seen as independent action by rhodes who reacts to pontic agression against sinope by starting a commercial blockade etc.

[illyric]

Let me guess, you attacked sinope as pontos and triggered a scripted event?

That shouldn't be considered kamikaze behaviour because the koinon represents alliance of city states so it could be seen as independent action by rhodes who reacts to pontic agression against sinope by starting a commercial blockade etc.

As far as I can remember I had conquered Sinope many turns earlier. I had already entered war with Greeks and signed a peace treaty (together with trade rights ). When they re-declared war upon me I had already conquered all Anatolia!