Icerian Rex
01-03-2004, 20:56
I've posted on this topic before, but have never really managed to get the conversation going, so I'll try once again and see what comes of it.
1. The benefits of MTW - The Risk Style, turn based settings. The magnificent battlefields. The troop variety...
2. ... benefits of AOK - Naval warfare, greater landscape variety (even though more cartoonish), and a larger number of buildings on the map. Also, you can build walls wherever you want, as well as wonders.
3. ... and with Stronghold - Single largest factor here is the ability to custom tailor your fortress, from the positioning of towers and walls, to manning them, to the flaming oil, etc... overall, there is just so much that goes into making a battle truly unique.
I would really enjoy seeing some of these ideas in place in future TW series'. For instance, the ability to arrive at a battle early and spread pitch in front of the path of the enemy, or create temporary earthworks with palisades of stakes (units can pass through them, but they take damage).
Same is true with the siege battles: I was really disappointed the first time I saw the boiling oil being dumped from the gatehouse, as it's not quite the same effect as the screams and burning bodies of stronghold.
Overall, MTW wins hands-down in terms of the vastness of the battle screens, but I've got some ideas for what could be done in the future that might really add some depth and realism to the game, I'd appreciate any comments or ideas others might have as well:
1. Rather than having gunpowder or the compass simply appear all at once, it would have to be discovered, either through trade or some contact with another culture, perhaps via investment in technology...
2. Population should play a factor: Continuously creating units from one or two provinces should have a negative effect on a population, where beyond a certain point it would be necessary to wait many years to create more and more units. It would also affect agricultural output (as the farmers would be off fighting, and not at home tilling).
3. Movement should have a cost: Shifting units all over kingdom come would, in my opinion, be expensive (just look at the troops in Iraq!http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif, and as such should carry a certain cost. The longer the voyage or march, the greater the expense. This cost could perhaps be less if a person was the defender, or if simply moving between provinces. The idea here would be to stop these Juggernauts of armies, where there is a vanguard of elite troops, with armies of peasants being built to arm the newly conquered territories.
NOTE: The former three could be perhaps toggled on or off.
4. At the end of a game (much as in AOE or AOK), there should be a recap of the empire's expansion, showing major battles via crossed swords or something, or simply showing the rise of that empire in comparison to other factions.
5. There should definitely be naval battles It's a whole new avenue of the game, as of yet not done. What good is it to spend four years building a silly cog or gunship, just so that it can sit off the coast to fight some future battle in autoresolve?
6. Battlefields should be allowed to be tweaked. For a certain cost, a defender should have the opportunity to build defenses, in the form of pitfalls, stakes, palisades, small earth walls, pitch fields, or something else.
7. Same with Castles... it would be really cool to be able to look at the piece of land the castle would occupy, and build that castle to the personal specifications you'd like (or the computer could do it).
8. I want to see a city grow on the map: Highly advanced provinces should have more than simply a dock and citadel to show for their efforts.
9. A variant that would substantially change game play would be: Rather than simply have a turn based game, or the AOK real time game, There would be continuous movement seen on the strategic map but with static moments at year end. Rather than simply having armies descend onto a particular province all at once, a person would have the ability to see the armies of the enemy on the move (via either spies or watchtowers), and could either move his own forces or not to counter a threat. Likewise, naval flotillas of forces headed toward your provinces could be detected by your own ships, and if the battle at sea was lost, forces from the enemy could land. The battles would in effect be frozen in time, but a person would have perhaps sixty seconds between the elapse of one year and the next, at which point the screen would freeze, news of that year would be announced (i.e., the pope excommunicates you, or a crusade is declared against you), as well as the ability to see what was built, etc...). Once all decision making was made, the strategy map would again become animated and play would resume. Also, a benefit of this would be that based on the time of year battles were fought, one could determine the battle conditions (such as snow in the winter).
10. Finally, my biggest wish would be for an add-on that would allow a person to create their own maps Perhaps five or ten pre-made maps would be there, but apart from that a person could a) Create their own borders, b)their own sea-spaces, c) Their own graphics (mountains, rivers, hills, forests, etc...), and d) Create a regions specific values (such as gold, iron, land value, peasants get a +1 valor bonus, etc..). In this way someone could create a MTW but with the land of Lord of the Rings for the backdrop, or Africa, or Persia, whatever A person would also be given the ability to pick from several hundred unit types, some historical, some fantasy, some modern, and then decide on their cost, attributes, special bonuses or weaknesses, and anything else that might be useful. In essence, the ultimate mod for dummies. One could recreate the French and Indian wars, World War I or II, the war for middle earth, or anything else they thought to be of interest. This, in a nutshell, would create the greatest departure from gaming as is currently known (buy the package, play the game as is), and would instead allow even those that had only a modicum of computer knowledge to create some fantastic games. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cheers.gif
1. The benefits of MTW - The Risk Style, turn based settings. The magnificent battlefields. The troop variety...
2. ... benefits of AOK - Naval warfare, greater landscape variety (even though more cartoonish), and a larger number of buildings on the map. Also, you can build walls wherever you want, as well as wonders.
3. ... and with Stronghold - Single largest factor here is the ability to custom tailor your fortress, from the positioning of towers and walls, to manning them, to the flaming oil, etc... overall, there is just so much that goes into making a battle truly unique.
I would really enjoy seeing some of these ideas in place in future TW series'. For instance, the ability to arrive at a battle early and spread pitch in front of the path of the enemy, or create temporary earthworks with palisades of stakes (units can pass through them, but they take damage).
Same is true with the siege battles: I was really disappointed the first time I saw the boiling oil being dumped from the gatehouse, as it's not quite the same effect as the screams and burning bodies of stronghold.
Overall, MTW wins hands-down in terms of the vastness of the battle screens, but I've got some ideas for what could be done in the future that might really add some depth and realism to the game, I'd appreciate any comments or ideas others might have as well:
1. Rather than having gunpowder or the compass simply appear all at once, it would have to be discovered, either through trade or some contact with another culture, perhaps via investment in technology...
2. Population should play a factor: Continuously creating units from one or two provinces should have a negative effect on a population, where beyond a certain point it would be necessary to wait many years to create more and more units. It would also affect agricultural output (as the farmers would be off fighting, and not at home tilling).
3. Movement should have a cost: Shifting units all over kingdom come would, in my opinion, be expensive (just look at the troops in Iraq!http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif, and as such should carry a certain cost. The longer the voyage or march, the greater the expense. This cost could perhaps be less if a person was the defender, or if simply moving between provinces. The idea here would be to stop these Juggernauts of armies, where there is a vanguard of elite troops, with armies of peasants being built to arm the newly conquered territories.
NOTE: The former three could be perhaps toggled on or off.
4. At the end of a game (much as in AOE or AOK), there should be a recap of the empire's expansion, showing major battles via crossed swords or something, or simply showing the rise of that empire in comparison to other factions.
5. There should definitely be naval battles It's a whole new avenue of the game, as of yet not done. What good is it to spend four years building a silly cog or gunship, just so that it can sit off the coast to fight some future battle in autoresolve?
6. Battlefields should be allowed to be tweaked. For a certain cost, a defender should have the opportunity to build defenses, in the form of pitfalls, stakes, palisades, small earth walls, pitch fields, or something else.
7. Same with Castles... it would be really cool to be able to look at the piece of land the castle would occupy, and build that castle to the personal specifications you'd like (or the computer could do it).
8. I want to see a city grow on the map: Highly advanced provinces should have more than simply a dock and citadel to show for their efforts.
9. A variant that would substantially change game play would be: Rather than simply have a turn based game, or the AOK real time game, There would be continuous movement seen on the strategic map but with static moments at year end. Rather than simply having armies descend onto a particular province all at once, a person would have the ability to see the armies of the enemy on the move (via either spies or watchtowers), and could either move his own forces or not to counter a threat. Likewise, naval flotillas of forces headed toward your provinces could be detected by your own ships, and if the battle at sea was lost, forces from the enemy could land. The battles would in effect be frozen in time, but a person would have perhaps sixty seconds between the elapse of one year and the next, at which point the screen would freeze, news of that year would be announced (i.e., the pope excommunicates you, or a crusade is declared against you), as well as the ability to see what was built, etc...). Once all decision making was made, the strategy map would again become animated and play would resume. Also, a benefit of this would be that based on the time of year battles were fought, one could determine the battle conditions (such as snow in the winter).
10. Finally, my biggest wish would be for an add-on that would allow a person to create their own maps Perhaps five or ten pre-made maps would be there, but apart from that a person could a) Create their own borders, b)their own sea-spaces, c) Their own graphics (mountains, rivers, hills, forests, etc...), and d) Create a regions specific values (such as gold, iron, land value, peasants get a +1 valor bonus, etc..). In this way someone could create a MTW but with the land of Lord of the Rings for the backdrop, or Africa, or Persia, whatever A person would also be given the ability to pick from several hundred unit types, some historical, some fantasy, some modern, and then decide on their cost, attributes, special bonuses or weaknesses, and anything else that might be useful. In essence, the ultimate mod for dummies. One could recreate the French and Indian wars, World War I or II, the war for middle earth, or anything else they thought to be of interest. This, in a nutshell, would create the greatest departure from gaming as is currently known (buy the package, play the game as is), and would instead allow even those that had only a modicum of computer knowledge to create some fantastic games. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cheers.gif