Innovations...

Am I the only one who gets the impression that this game isn't much more than a R:TW mod? It really seems like this is the first of the TW games that hasn't found some new innovation that makes it leaps and bounds better than the previous.

Don't get me wrong: I love this game. I loved R:TW, but I flipped when I saw what this was going to be... I had always longed for the Medieval setting when playing Rome.

That said, there was no new interface element, no new great gameplay innovation... in battle or on the campaign map.

Which lends the question: What will be the next major jump for the series?

My thought is this...

Thus far, one of the problems that the Total War series has in replicating the historical paths of nations is that barbarian tribes/rebels can never become factions. In the Total War world, the English provinces in the new world rebelled, and became a bunch of "English Rebels" at war with everyone in the world, rather than conglomerating into a new nation... in other words, if a group of cities rebel, should it not be possible for them to join together as a new faction? If Iverness decides to oust it's Governer and representative of Edinbrough, perhaps Iverness becomes it's own faction. Not in every case, of course.. and it should take time, perhaps, and be dependant on distance from capital (it's much easier for a place like America to spawn new civilizations when it takes months for England or Spain to get any troops there).

To take this a step further, the player may decide to start as a newly formed nation somewhere along the historical timeline, rather than at the beginning of the game. Or play as a rebel faction fighting not to be swollowed up (for example, take the place of the York English rebels... you represent the last vestages of Saxon power fighting not to be swollowed up by the Norman invaders).

Anyways, just a couple of thoughts.

Back in the OLD OLD days of the Ghengis Khan series on SNES every rebelling general became his own faction. I don't see why the same couldn't happen here.

One problem might be troop & building options. You could just give them the same options as another faction or you could base more of the troops and buildings specs on geography rather than on faction. I mean . . how much sense does it make that the Scots could train highlanders in the sahara, but after a 20 year occupation the HRE couldn't pull together a unit of highlanders in Inverness.

When I modded MTW1, I set one up where each faction had 2-3 unique units and everything else was geographical. It was really fun. Conquering new lands unlocked new troops for my armies. The only downside was altering the AI to get the other factions to build units was impossibly complicated and time consuming so the composition of opposing armies was sometimes pretty screwy.

In terms of camp map, i'd love to see some more complex diplomacy options with more characters in the mix. Perhaps you could call a council and invite different factions and characters to the table then propose more substantial diplomatic resolutions. Treaties for peace, trade, payment, etc with a mandatory number of years attached. The college of cardinals is a good start, but that sort of meeting happened for other reasons too.

Anther advancment that might be pretty cool on the camp map is to free up the founding of new settlements and an ability to go back and forth from a vassall system to a more modern nation-state system.

For instance, if my king decides he needs a castle to protect a strategic bridge or I think a city could prosper near certain key trade resources, I should be able to found a city there and grow. I'm thinking more along the lines of the civ series with expanding zones of control. Bigger cities control more land. So rather than have a certain number of settlements & states/countries you would have a more realistic medieval system of castles, cities and areas of control. Each settlement would of course be more or less autonomous. There were huge differences between the early HRE and its loose confediration of independent nobles and the English after the Norman conquest, with a relatively strong monarch bullying his gentry. Perhaps the game could take this into account in some way so that you had to navigate a system of vassalage, mayorships, city councils, and powerful religious figures.

For instance, in many countries the king had a 'national" palace as well as his own hereditary holdings. Obviously you would have more direct control . . 30 build points? . . in your own holdings than in those of a semi-autonomous dukedom . . 5 build points . . or a large city with a powerful council. Through marriage, bribery, titles, etc you could gain power in your own kingdom as well as thoughout the world.

It could be like in BI with the Western Roman Empire Rebels etc. only with set provinces,
e.g. If English held North America rebelled it could become the USA or something along those lines.

Somethings to take from Rise of Nations perhaps may be the concept of dynamic borders. Being able to borderpush the enemy would bring increasing lands uner your control without open war and you being able to sit next to their cities while technically in your lands. Forts can also be made more useful by exerting border influence.

Some concept of supply lines could also be interesting and encourage expanding in an organized fashion, making it more risky to leapfrog hardpoints etc.