Total War Saga: Troy - general discussion

[KLAssurbanipal]

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1099410/Total_War_Saga_TROY/

[Xantan]

From my perspective, while I do appreciate that they're bringing out new content, Troy TW will not really be something very historical due to the lack of credible sources around the whole event. It will be interesting to see a mini-pre-Rome 2 TW shaped out.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

From my perspective, while I do appreciate that they're bringing out new content, Troy TW will not really be something very historical due to the lack of credible sources around the whole event. It will be interesting to see a mini-pre-Rome 2 TW shaped out.

Oh I don't know - we actually know quite a lot about the period, just not a lot about the war itself.

[edyzmedieval]

But we do know enough to have a good historical overview of the military aspects?

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

But we do know enough to have a good historical overview of the military aspects?

To a point? We can reconstruct the cities fairly well now, including Troy, and we have a fair idea of the sorts of ships they used. The major issue, if anything, would be the lack of variety of units.

A dirty secret we don't like to talk about much is that we don't really know a lot about ancient warfare from the later Archaic and Classical periods. We know nothing of swordplay except what we see on a few sculptures and what we can infer from the weapons. We're not even sure hoe Greek hoplites held their spears.

[lars573]

Ah the great underhand vs overhand spear debate.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Ah the great underhand vs overhand spear debate.

Yes, that one.

Given that a lot of the depictions were Athenian and the Athenians had a citizen-army the potters probably would have seen practicing it seem incredible that they would consistently misrepresent the use of the primary hoplite weapon.

On the other hand, there's very little you can do with an overhand spear except stab downwards.

[ConjurerDragon]

Yes, that one.

Given that a lot of the depictions were Athenian and the Athenians had a citizen-army the potters probably would have seen practicing it seem incredible that they would consistently misrepresent the use of the primary hoplite weapon.

On the other hand, there's very little you can do with an overhand spear except stab downwards.

Throw it?

There are a lot of possible reasons why pictures could be unlike reality.
Artistic freedom - I do not want to depict it like that because my work of art should look like this.
Potters with limited talent who outsourced the painting to others who did not observe the militia training firsthand.
Untalented painters - Sure, a spear looks like that when used, but I can only draw it like that, else noone would recognize that it is a spear.
Religious taboos: Oh no, you can’t depict a spear that way, the youth might misuse the amphores decorations as templates for nether actions.
Heroic posture: The real use of a spear hardly looks inspiring, but depicted THAT way the fighter looks like a heros.
A for us hidden code that would have been obvious to the ancient observer: e.g. like in western movies the good guys alway wore white and the bad guys black cowboy hats. Perhaps the underhanded spear user was the evil guy and the good guy had to be depicted using it overhand? Or you could see from the position of the spear who the winner of the battle was - everyone knew that the winning fighter had to be depicted using the spear overhand...

After all even the much later tapestry of Bayeux is suspected not to show real life in every dirty realistic detail but an artistic expression of the events.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Throw it?

There are a lot of possible reasons why pictures could be unlike reality.
Artistic freedom - I do not want to depict it like that because my work of art should look like this.
Potters with limited talent who outsourced the painting to others who did not observe the militia training firsthand.
Untalented painters - Sure, a spear looks like that when used, but I can only draw it like that, else noone would recognize that it is a spear.
Religious taboos: Oh no, you can’t depict a spear that way, the youth might misuse the amphores decorations as templates for nether actions.
Heroic posture: The real use of a spear hardly looks inspiring, but depicted THAT way the fighter looks like a heros.
A for us hidden code that would have been obvious to the ancient observer: e.g. like in western movies the good guys alway wore white and the bad guys black cowboy hats. Perhaps the underhanded spear user was the evil guy and the good guy had to be depicted using it overhand? Or you could see from the position of the spear who the winner of the battle was - everyone knew that the winning fighter had to be depicted using the spear overhand...

After all even the much later tapestry of Bayeux is suspected not to show real life in every dirty realistic detail but an artistic expression of the events.

Oh ho.

First of all "ritual" is the archaeologist's get out excuse and the anathema of Dr Peter Reynolds's "Form follows function". In this case, the simplest explanation for consistent depiction of overhand spear use is that hoplites used the spear overhand - as here:

22868

Wikipedia has an article on this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoplite_formation_in_art

The complaint is that the overhand thrust is less powerful than the underhand thrust. Notably, Hoplites are depicted using their spears underhand when out of formation. One plausible explanation is that in the tight phalanx formation there wasn't actually enough space to use the spear underhand without striking the man behind you.

[KLAssurbanipal]

Updated first post.

[aradralami]

Total War Troy is a magnificent idea, but I need to point out the obvious, Total War has always being respected for its fidelity when it comes of portraying historical times, and those armors, that both Achilles and Hector are wearing they seem to be too much modern for the ancient times, it looks more like an armor design from the game "Ryse: Son of Rome". I do not wish to bash on they beautiful and amazing works,I hope those amazing kinda fantasy armor design to have a true reason to be there, like perhaps future projects of mixing historical fidelity with fantasy or myth.

[KLAssurbanipal]

I found Hittites in one screen:

http://totalwar.org.pl/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Hetyci-z-TWS-Troy.png


Some sources of units (screens) and heroes (box artwork), but Achilles and Hector (from trailer) have a fantasy look.

http://totalwar.org.pl/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Mykeńczycy-z-TWS-Troy-1.png

[Myth]

What bothers me the most is that they have this "hero units" thing from the Three Kingdoms game and they seem keen to build upon it and introduce it into Troy. Whilst Achiles is a mythological figure, I do not wish to see him single handedly destroying entire armies on his own. As with any TW product since Medieval 2 my motto would be: wait for the reviews and possibly for the first sale.

[edyzmedieval]

To be honest with you, I wish CA all the best but I will be skipping this one. Heroes and ancient factions is not my cup of tea - Hellenistic period yes, it's fabulous, but this period is not for me.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcYNhzwKz00

First look at campaign.

[KLAssurbanipal]

It was published the same day as the trailer and screenshots - September 19th. :)

[WarlockGamer]

In my opinion this part is really cool

[Xantan]

Would be curious to see the overall player reaction when it gets released - how many people will be playing this. Since this is something a bit out of the usual realm of TW, and with overall TW interest going down (Warhammer excluded), how will things shape up?

[Lusitanio]

I think it won't go very well since people already have games like Rome and Rome II plus Europa Barbarorum for ancient times. Of course that period is completely different but it seems that it won't have navy warfare, will probably have unrealistic heroes that can kill 100 soldiers just with their spear. Hopefully, the "Gods" won't be an annoying thing, but the biggest problem is the city of Troy. How will the actual siege go? Will it end the two turns?

The best thing of course will be to wait for the reviews, I hope it's good because if not than CA won't touch this period anymore.

[edyzmedieval]

It's something for them to explore in the end - they need to diversify a bit overall, hence why they're going for Ancient settings.

[KLAssurbanipal]

https://www.totalwar.com/blog/achilles-achaeans-and-aesthetics-the-art-of-troy/

[KLAssurbanipal]

New blog:

https://www.totalwar.com/blog/bartering-bronze-and-battles-troy-and-the-bronze-age

[NikolaTheGreat]

Nice game I think, I like the setting which is quite original and risky as a same time, Achilles would be too OP imho but you know the heroes made the Illiad epic :)


Hector vs Achilles, a battle between two titans for the destiny of the universe!

[Mariap]

It is necessary that they launch good content for Troy TW and thus have an audience. (http://puntitocom.com)

[edyzmedieval]

I've played a bit of Troy TW past weekend and here are some of my initial thoughts. :bow:

As the main impression, and main positive point for me, the UI, just like ToB, is absolutely spectacular! Fabulous work done by the Art team, spectacular work. I do notice that the game has been simplified, in the scope of ToB as well, and with the resources it feels a lot like Age of Empires in that aspect. Not particularly fond of it, but it works, and adds a different depth of decisions that you need to do. Researching tech now is a bit different, and it grants you resources, which again is good for the game but it feels strange as a Total War product. It takes time to adapt to it.

Building browser again is different, it forces you to clearly choose but often times you see that in the beginning of the game, there are drawbacks (on resources especially) that you can't get back that easily. So while it creates a good choice to have it's hard to use it in the beginning. Especially if you don't have gold!

Battles wise, it's almost the same as ToB, with the obvious added difference of having hero units. Haven't played a siege yet but I will do a custom siege Troy battle.

So far it's a solid game but to be frank, not my cup of tea. It's just too different as a TW game in my view. However for those familiar with ToB / Warhammer even, this is a good game. And of course, I could sit for HOURS and look at the game, the artwork is beyond splendid!

[Xantan]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkTHqCFyjOs

A nitpick from my side - the resources part can sometimes be very confusing. TW operated with few resources overall but the multitude of resources now in Troy TW is a bit too much.

Plus, some of them are very hard to obtain so why include them? Just gold and maybe stone / timber or something was enough.

[Xantan]

Did anyone play more Troy TW lately? Can anyone shed some light?

Epic's exclusivity is drawing to a close and soon the game will be out on Steam.