My idea to improve the TW series.

Anyone ever played the old school SNES/Sega/PC game Genghis Khan II: Clan of the Grey Wolf?

This was an awesome strategy game for it's time. I still love it a lot. I think a game like TW could learn a lot from such an oldschool masterpeice.

And considering the similiarities between the two games, I think it'd be a nice meld.

I think that the TW series has a nice battle system but I think that the Grand Campaign could be improved by looking at GK2. Or the premise of the next game could be found by looking at GK2.

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Wouldn't it be nice to have a map which stretches all of asia, europe, the middle east and parts of north africa? Including all of the great leaders of the time. Hojo in Japan... Kublai Khan... The Golden Horde... etc.

It would mean that they'd have to make a lot more different factions but it'd be a lot of fun.

IN GK2 campaign you could Buy and Sell items which would take up movement points from your faction heir. The rate of trade would change depending on a number of factors. Different kinds of merchants would travel the map and if they landed on your land you could trade with them. It added a sort of stock-exchange system for gaining money in the campaign mode. It makes the whole merchant system feel like an actual merchant system... rather than moving merchants to sit on resource points. Still, in GK2, countries would have more resources depending on their location to start out with. So if you start in certain areas you have more of different resources depending on how realistic it would be.

Another good aspect of GK2 is that you could name your children whatever you wanted. You would spend your heirs movement points to do things with his family. The more you interacted with your children, the better they would be once you finally appointed them as generals. Your wife would make comments like "Temujin is quite mischevous" and that would increase one of his traits.

The game was pretty old, and TW has some good game mechanics... But there are some things in GK2 that I think could improve a game like TW. I'm not saying have the exact same campaign style as GK2, but if you could somehow combine GK2 mechanics w/ TW i think that would be really awesome. And keep the TW fighting system.

The games are so similar that it seems it'd work great.

In an ideal world it would indeed be a great idea. Unfortunately, the sophistication of games now and the reality of the games industry now, as opposed to then, makes such an epic project basically unfeasable.

Good ideas on the merchant front though. I know the series is called "Total War" but Id actually like to gain power through other means, including trade. There is a game called Knights of Honour, very much like the Total War games. In that I once became so rich purely through trade that I was able to buy my way past all problems. Many people may not like the idea of that but the point is that the choice was there.

Yeah I always like it when I can name my characters in games. It would be a nice little feature that would allow me to feel more attached to my generals because I usually name ingame characters after my mates.

Hmm tough one. I am certain CA want to maintain broad appeal..so that kinda rules out super heavy micro management....

But I think the next game does have to do something radical. I would like to see a real time strategic map...of course speed could be adjusted to suit etc...but it could work well.

I would also like a bit more attention to facts..not slave like..Hastings note complete lack of Norman crossbowmen! ..ok so I am picky..but still....keep it real ish guys.

Bit more depth and options to tweak how real time battles play..speed options too.

One way of allowing 'you' to name characters would be when a new son is born - you get to choose from a dropdown selection i.e. from the names assigned to your chosen nation.

To make the game more interesting long term would be to expand the characters to include nobles such as Earls, Dukes etc. So that you could award family members or certain generals with these titles i.e. Earl of Cambridge. These would form your Council of Nobles and could be linked into loyalty and rebellion. This could be integrated with civil war - when say not so loyal generals and/or nobles support the succession to the throne of another noble or Prince (if the faction leader other sons were recognised as Princes!)

In my opinion, the Princesses should only be offered in a marriage to a noble or royal family. And not any old general. And the adoption thing seems too much like RTW to me.

I have finished the game twice now and for me it is starting to feel like RTW with a new skin. And it has lost some of the MW atmosphere.

Real time campaign map - absolutely horrible idea in my mind!
I hope it never comes down to that level...

If you are making decisions for a whole year (or whatever turns/year) you should not feel rushed. After all, there is plenty of time to plan attacks and manage cities in the "game world time" - why should I be reduced to 10 minutes per year (or whatever the rate would be)?

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Originally Posted by Rothe

Real time campaign map - absolutely horrible idea in my mind!
I hope it never comes down to that level...

If you are making decisions for a whole year (or whatever turns/year) you should not feel rushed. After all, there is plenty of time to plan attacks and manage cities in the "game world time" - why should I be reduced to 10 minutes per year (or whatever the rate would be)?

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Honestly, give Knights of Honour a try and see how well it works. I think it is a natural place for the Total War series to go. Im just surprised it hasn't already.

real time would be bad... there's so many things going on on the campaign map (especially the later game) that one would die fast.

I like the idea of naming characters. Giving names would have one give more emotion to characters.

One way to improve the series is to have less stuff hardcoded, like Civilization IV so the mods can be limitless in creativity.


Over all, the TW series are my favorite games! Keep up the good work CA.