Ultimate MTW

[Nomad]

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif
Your opportunity to say "How it should be" Do you pine for Naval combat, or road networks to allow armies more than hunderd miles per year. Maybe more Civ and less War. Perhaps more historically accurate regions.
From the Trivial to the profound. What gripes you and what "additions" do think would make MTW the Ultimate Historical RTS.
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[Accounting Troll]

I'd have loved being able to fight naval battles.

Also, more advanced diplomatic options would have been nice. When you lead a small faction, you can't win by brute strength, so you need to be a backstabbing weasel.

[Malcolm Big Head]

Options on ways to kill prisoners http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/bigthumb.gif

[MalibuMan]

Yeah, I'd like a bit more ability to take your nation in whichever direction you wanted to, for things like a spying and diplomacy-centric strategy, or a science and technology strategy, to be viable options. Of course no amount of information about the enemy army, or superior weaponry, will save you if you don't have any troops, so the game must remain above all realistic to the time period it models, but I think these strategies are underplayed at the moment.

For example, you should be able to choose to put more money into science/technology, to get access to things which other nations don't have (domestic as well as military). This would have to be very carefully done because scientific development was sluggish at best in the time period of the game, but things like you should be able to get to gunpowder or the compass before other people, or exploit these inventions better and more quickly with a better science and technology base. Or much smaller things like metalworking advances or bow design could give a small edge to troops (on a more detailed level than the current 'weapons upgrade').

[el_slapper]

A dynasty manager like in Crusader Kings. And vassalization with it. Let's England be vassal of France ;)

No need to finish off enemies - and with it more factions.

Already said, but a more detailled tech system.

More realistic troops training. Oda Nobunaga said "it takes 3 years to train an archer, but only 5 weeks to train a muskeeter". Have recruitment depending on local population.

Make trade goods have more impact : wood allows to build bows, leather/steel are required to buid armors, gems increase craftsmen productivity, butter increases morale & so on. Plus land trade.

Horse archers firing while running, not simply quick archers.

and, but just an idea to make it taste better, allow customization of units(I want my Arbalester to have more armor, or my hobilars to have less to be quicker...)

[A.Saturnus]

What does that do in the Tavern?

[Auxilia]

Yes, real-time naval battles would be very cool.

Better thought out sieges.

A more accurate recruiting system, with more faction specific units.

[katank]

yep, always struck me as unrealistic how later RKs have so much more armor and yet are still just as fast.

all these are great ideas.

naval combat system is definitely needed, same with diplomacy and being able to trade provinces, money, etc. and more stable alliance system.

ie. allies needs to change to neutral for a few years before they can attack, giving fore warning or else risk losing 3 crowns of influence or something. nice stiff penalties.

[Eastside Character]

Just give me better(more realistic) AI, and I can live without all those others improvement you all here mentioned.

Regards,
EC

[son of spam]

Definitely naval combat.

Also, many more factions Split the Italians into city-states that can ally with each other and rarely break alliances. All those rebels on the board defintely need to be part of new factions. I never want to see a rebel again unless its a small bandit army. Civil war rebels should get their own faction, like maybe from the english civil war you can have the lancastrians and the yorks or something. Perhaps you can make it so that attacking other factions when you have a civil war is severly detrimental, so you won't have a Lancastrian faction sharing the map with a Yorkish (sp?) faction.

More buildings, and a more realistic unit management system, like the homelands of medmod, but more so. Perhaps you can only build a limited number of hi tech troops per decade in a province? This will stop the crazy armies of 16 RK or 16 CK from owning.

More realistic generals, like what is coming out in RTW.

Much better diplo, more along the lines of civ III.

[katank]

good stuff, SoS.

BTW, I would like a chain of command system.

I would like there to be a second in command feature.

If the commander is killed, then the second takes over.

there should be a penalty like maybe only half the bonuses of the second being given and a morale penalty for the general death.

when both are killed, then a really stiff penalty should kick in.

This would also prevent my army from practically melting when my general gets kileld by a lucky catapult shot from the enemy or something.

[Mouzafphaerre]

-
Two words:

"detail", "depth" http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

Much more micromanagement. More sociologically accurate population management for instance. Invade a province, build a couple buildings, spam with high level clericals/imams and it's totally yours a decade later. History didn't work like this.

The province concept should be redone. Unlike some patrons, I like it but also would love to see real functioning cities and fortifications.

Many many more provinces and factions.

Naval combat, aye sir We don't need no PotC, just a Patrician III style simple engine will do it.

Faction unique customization.

Transportation, trade, diplomacy, politics...

REAL moddability, as in no stupid hardcoded stuff. I mean, the engine can still be there in its keep but come on guys? What's the point in hardcoding GA? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif
_

[son of spam]

Yeah, I like the second in command feature idea, Katank.


But maybe it would be better if it only worked for humans http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif. I just had a battle against the Turks (medmod), roughly equal numbers, except I had half-strength merc units, 3 spears, 2 woodsmen, and 4 half depeleted units of archers/xbows. My general was a one star 18 men viking raider cav.

The turks had 3 or 4 ottoman inf, some spears, one unit of faris, and their 5 star gen.

My first thought was "oh god, I'm screwed". Then, I noticed that their gen was one man (v6) but still only a one man unit of ottoman siphai. The craziest thing was that the gen marched at the head of his army ...right into a greeting volley by my missile units http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif.

Needless to say, I had an overwhelming victory, killing 400 and losing only 97 men.

[katank]

lol, yeah.

but I think we should give the poor AI a chance.

they shoulda also get that.

however, if both generals get killed, then morale penalty would be like -10 or something stiff like that.

-6 for commander in chief is enough, -2 after few seconds.

-10, -4 afterwards when the second dude also bites the dust.

The AI may very well stupidly march out its second in command too http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[Finn]

far longer timescale, what a couple of hundred years? pff give me pre roman through to 19th century (dont think you could go beyond that due to the change in how wars/battles are fought once machinery starts to play a more imprtant roll)

"proper" seige equipment like we see in the intro

better management of unit sizes, unit size should not be a balancing tool, but should be a tactical tool, as a general i should be able to decide how big i am going to make a certain unit of men none of this "spears are 200, swords are 120 stuff)

Also if units are treated individually (eg in valour) then let me manage them individually, allow to sort 2 like units based on valour so i can filter out the highest valour into a new unit etc


better unit production/tech tree, if i invade a province thats been kicking out a certain unit for years, why cant i produce that unit with the exact same people in the country as before?

completely global map

completely get rid of the "province" system, historically borders were changable at best, borders changing should be more dynamic and less fixed, eg if i want to march an army down through a country avoiding any of the major population/military centres and head straight for the capital, i should be able to, equally the defenders is going to try to head me off too.

more "science" involved in the tech tree, eg a certain tech shouldnt appear just when a certain year rolls by, but more based on research, eg if i fight against an army with chain mail, i should then be able to build some (quite bad) chain mail, as time progresses and the reports of how the chain mail fairs in battle come back from my frontlines, i can improve and modify the chainmail to make it better. the same with everything else, swords, pikes etc.

[MalibuMan]

Quote[/b] (Finn @ April 26 2004,04:20)]completely get rid of the "province" system, historically borders were changable at best, borders changing should be more dynamic and less fixed, eg if i want to march an army down through a country avoiding any of the major population/military centres and head straight for the capital, i should be able to, equally the defenders is going to try to head me off too.
This is coming in RTW.

Good other suggestions btw.

[PseRamesses]

I do agree with EC that the best wish for an uber-TW-game would be a smarter AI. Don´t you just love it when the AI pull a really smart move on you?
*The other day I creamed an Italian armys archers with my cavs and the Italian commander pulled his foot soldiers into a nearby forest where my cavs weren´t of much use.
*Or when you get rushed directly by 4-6 GBG´s because the AI realizes that you won´t have time to reach an advantage point?
One should hope for an AI that learns from the human player by the way he plays. Some have the same style and army- compozition at all times and attacks/ defends in the same way so the AI should learn from that and try to find a way around it. That would be "artificial intelligence".

[lancer63]

I share most of the ideas here, specially about naval combat and diplomacy. And I know it's wishful thinking, but I don't like to have generals who advance in rank yet they have to remain low units. Like that 3-4 urban militia guy who always apears in Anjou, or the 5 star italian UM already in Corsica, or Sardinia can't remember, I say if a good UM general gains rank, he (and his unit of course) should be upgraded within his branch to militia sergeant, halberdier, pikemen, etc. Same thing for spears, archers, cavalry, etc. As upgrades become available. For the same reason a 'bad' general should be 'degraded' as a unit. I know it wont be done. I just hate to lose a good general just because he commands a bunch of peasants who couldn't stand a chance against mediocre cavalry.

[PseRamesses]

Quote[/b] (lancer63 @ April 26 2004,10:14)]I don't like to have generals who advance in rank yet they have to remain low units.
What I really find ridiculous is to see a general on foot?
Personally I think a generals unit should be the best cav unit in the era, constantly upgrading so I concur with your thoughts on this.

[Nigel]

Many things on my whishlist have been said before:

better diplomacy
better AI
generals moving up in rank
more depth (but not necessarily more detail, imho)
easier modding

but most of all : a Multiplayer Campaign http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-yes.gif

Nigel

[Zhuge_Liang]

it would be nice that commanders who follows an hero (or high ranked general) learns v&v and get ranks while they figth on his army
what about to set population on which province which you can grown faster building houses and loose it recruiting troops (population would increase/decrease the earning money)

[Bhruic]

Some things I'd like to see:

More accurate travelling system. It's silly that I can get from Ireland to Tripoli in one turn via ships, but it takes me three turns to get from Scotland to Wessex.

The ability to affect supply. Army vs army fighting is fine and all, but it can be more effect to attack an enemy's supply lines. No food/replacement ammo/etc will take a toll on an army, making it easier to eliminate.

AI settings for your own army. Sometimes I'll be off microing HA or something, and glance up to find that the enemy has attacked my main army. Which is just standing there. It'd be nice to be able to assign units tasks, that they will do - "Defend unit X", or "Attack anything that comes closer than X", for example.

Of course, these ideas aren't important to me as a better AI and better diplomatic options would be, but those have already been mentioned, so I won't go into any detail on them.

Bh

[katank]

bhruic is right, in RTS games like AOk and RON, these unit behavior command are far more complex than that of MTW

[lancer63]

Quote[/b] (Zhuge_Liang @ April 26 2004,14:39)]it would be nice that commanders who follows an hero (or high ranked general) learns v&v and get ranks while they figth on his army
what about to set population on which province which you can grown faster building houses and loose it recruiting troops (population would increase/decrease the earning money)
If I remember correctly, in Romance of the Three Kingdoms you could only train a limited percentage of the population into soldiers per year, and when disasters happened the ability to train troops would suffer accordingly. Same thing when a good crop or the opening of a trade route or a new mine. The population increased and technological upgrades became available as the limit of troops to train increased. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-book2.gif

[gaelic cowboy]

I want more provinces to crush and more diplomacy so I can feel more evil when I crush my allies as well as my enemys. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[Daveybaby]

(1) Revamp the trade system.
Currently its too dependent on sea routes and too easy for one empire to dominate. Change the focus of trade from a province-to-province level to an empire-to-empire level.

i.e. Make it so that if your empire has a tradeable item in one of its provinces (doesnt matter which province or where it is, you just have to own it), then you can trade that item with any empire that you share a border with (use chains of fleets between ports to allow trade with empires you dont share a border with).


(2) Change the way regional bonuses work.
i.e. dont require the facilities/units to be built in that specific province in order to gain the benefits - cos it just takes too damn long to build up a region and gain the benefits of the bonuses at the moment.

e.g. once i have a province with iron, let me build metalsmiths anywhere, not just in the provinces with iron (if i lose access to iron later on then my metalsmiths should become ineffective).

Or, if i capture region X which gives access to (say) high valour archers, then any archers i build anywhere after that should gain the valour bonus (again, if i lose control of the province then i lose the bonus for any subsequently trained archers).

[katank]

I would say the iron stuff should be tradeable and exportable to your other provinces.

if it's close to your iron province, then it can build first level metal smith etc.

the home province can naturall build all the way to metalsmith 4 but the others scale.

that way, your better provinces at least get some weapon bonuses.

[Daveybaby]

Meh, the whole reason i want it available thoughout your kingdom is to reduce the micromanagement, and to get rid of the annoyance of having to build up a complete province from scratch (taking seventeen bazillion years) in order to get the full benefit of the of the iron. Allowing nearby provinces to benefit from it a bit doesnt really help.

I like the idea of making iron tradable, though. Conversely i kinda like the idea of giving the other trading goods some tangible benefits to your empire... e.g. access to silk (and other luxuries) makes your people happier.

[NewJeffCT]

I have only played Single Player, Early, Total Domination, so based on that perspective, some things I would like to see:
1) Fuzzier era changes. To me, it does not seem realistic that, bang, in 1205 you can suddenly start cranking out crossbows, arbalesters, chivalric knights, sergeants and men-at-arms, etc, when one year earlier you could not. Maybe 5-10 years earlier, you can produce crossbows & longbows, then in 1205, you can start on arbalesters and 1215 you do pavise arbs? Maybe in 1195, you can produce an early version of the Chivalric Sergeant that is a bit better than a Feudal Sergeant but not quite the final Chiv Sergeant?
2) More trade goods, but maybe lower value for all of them. And, land-bound provinces should not be quite so penalized when it comes to trade, I think. Why can't Anjou send its goods to Aquitine or Normandy for export if you control both provinces?
3) Better diplomacy. Instead of 3 levels – at war, neutral, allied – you can have 5 levels – a) at war, b) recently hostile (just entered into a ceasefire, tensions still high, only limited trade, if any), c) neutral, d) allied, e) strongly allied. With a strongly allied faction, you can coordinate an attack.(i.e., you are the English and strongly allied with the HRE due to your king marrying an HRE princess. You can send an emissary to say, “Attack: France”)
4) Flexible, provinceless maps sound great as well per RTW.
5) This is a big pet peeve of mine – a message that says “Are you sure you want to End Year?” when you hit the button. On numerous occasions, I have accidentally hit the button. Not usually a disaster, but sometimes I miss a new building being started.
6) I agree with other posters – bishop-cardinal/imam spamming should be less powerful. Now, within a decade, you can turn a whole province to 90%+ followers your religion by dumping in 12-15 holy men. Maybe diminishing returns for each holy man beyond the first? Why are there not other holy men coming from Persia or farther down the Nile? It would be cool to see a random Imam from there, or a Jewish rabbi wandering about. I believe one or two provinces do start with a small Jewish percentage, no?
7) More buildings so you can have more choices.
8) Better naval combat.

[Nomad]

I guess there will be some kind of AI mod eventually. At least the Dudes at GamesHeavan have managed it with Cossaks and American Conquest. So maybe one day some bright spark will reinvent MTW's AI (Hardcoded or not).