Total War Online: A dream come true?

I ve read this rumor that swedish PC gamer magazine hinted that the next TW game after Empire will be an MMORTS...I dont know the details but I remember sending to a CA dev this idea of mine:


"A Gigantic map...that has every little castle, dutchy, county that existed in Medieval times. 100 factions (Knights of Honor has as much) so any player will have the choice to choose any faction he likes.
A living world that is in REAL time and runs 24/7.

Whenever a player starts he makes an account and chooses a faction.
Now he can pick up an army from the available pool depending on the buildings his faction has at that time. Hes allocated with set amount of cash to start. After that he has many options: Either manage his castle/province or engage in diplomacy with the neighbours or or even start a war by attacking a nearby settlement or army.

Any action he is doing is represented as his character as a general and his army as his tool of destruction. His army grows or dwindles depending on his actions.
Now the most important factor (IMO) is what happens when the player is absent? Well his army simply loggs off the game! And his castle is manned by the "PO" garrison of a decent amount of archers/crossbows and militia OR if his faction has more than one players (mostly the popular factions like Byzantium or England) that player is notified to fight to defend the castle. The diplomacy in the case of multiple players that picked up the same faction is treated on a presence/rank level meaning that any negotiations will be engaged with the highest ranking player (meaning clan/faction leader and lower) present at that time OR on a pre set basis or "guidelines" that are given by the absent leader.

All players will be free enough to go wherever they want in real time on a scaled movement rate however with the appropriate consequences like a war declaration or annoyance...
There will be rebel armies in a quide abudant numbers with plenty of little catsles and provinces to expand to...
The characters themselves would aqcuire parameters same as the SP game based on the player's actions with the death of the character the player would either get the heir of that character (so he must make sure that his character gets married) or if there is no heir the player gets to fight a mini civil war and pickes the side, and if that side wins he gets a new character spwaning from the ranks....

Also the world that surrounds the player can be set in the battle engine of the TW games WITHOUT any boundaries and if the sizes of armies are too big for the server to cope with it, the strategic layer can be used in real time as |I said before.
On the unit sizes the player can pick up ANY size he wants the cost of the units will be based on per soldier capita....So if 100 spearmen cost 100 florins to buy and 50 florins to upkeep, 200 spearmen will cost 200 florins to buy and 100 florins to upkeep.
Speaking of which the castle that the player is allocated with generates a fixed amount of money that pays the upkeep cost of anything that the player has in his army.
If the castle of the player is lost his army turns into "bandits" and he will not pay any upkeep for them until he recovers his castle or takes the castle from another player. In the case that the player belongs to a bigger faction he can become a general in the service of the monarch but his army will have to be paid from the crown's coffins but will have the option to recruit soldiers from the crown's castles/cities at his expense (the player generates wealth through looting enemie territories/castles or from booty from the battles and has his personal money).

The crown itslef is an entity thats allocated to the faction/clan leader it recieves a "crown tax" from the other clan members engages in state level diplomacy and generally operates the "big picture" of the clan/faction.
Naval battles will be made controllable and the troops that are present on board will participate in any engagement. No agents will be present in the game since the diplomacy would be dealt through a chat and any other character would be simply part of an agreement (marriage would be agreed through a chat no need for a princess character)...

If at any later point a new player joins the game he will be allocated soldiers/castle etc scalable to the point that the game is at that time so there are no phaenomena like a newbe with peasants against a veteran with gothic troops.
Armour upgrades and soldiers will be tradable, like the player can "upgrade" his byzantine infantry to varangians by "disbanding" the infantry in the castle and having the worth of that unit back (again based on per soldier capita) and by purchasing a unit of varangians the same size (or bigger with extra cost) as the byzantine infantry by paying any difference...

Events will take place in the game at a chronological time through "upgrades" that the developers will release (like chronicles in La2) like the high era upgrade after a year or the mongol invasion patch....
Speaking of UNPLAYABLE factions the mongols or the astecs will be mainly the PvE element that will require HUGE alliances to be forged to deal with them.
The Pope will be a GM character in the game regulating the catholic factions and launching crusades. The orthodox factions will have the patriarch of costantinople as the spiritual leader and most importantly will play major role in the reunification of churchers attempts that will be voted by orthodox players (players that control orthodox factions).
The crusades will be deal in the sense of raids with huge alliances forged to march to the holy land..."


The game will be called Total War Online and players will engage in battles for dominance in full real time...
Fingers Crossed to be true!!!

PS If anyone from Sweden can u confirm any of this?

A source please?

Sounds interesting, to say the least. If it is true then it could be fairly cool. I doubt it though.

Its an idea.

I got a better one. Read.

Same as the above, but instead of controlling an faction on a gigantic map u could make the map even more gigantic and for example in Holland u can play as Holland, Friesland, Utrecht, Gelre and Zeeland while in Germany u can play as any one of the provinces in there, both of those examples controlled by yourself with your own faction name and banner. I think is better in terms of the amount of players who actually gonna play this.

Which brings me to another idea. What if this "Total War Online" would be an game on its own crossing diffrent era's of history, like on one server you play in the Ancient Age(romans, greeks and carthaginians, u know the deal) while in another server you play in the Gunpowder Age with simple Hand Gonne's and very early matchlock Arquebusiers. It would be limited like this: Prehistoric Age - Englightenment Age(Napoleonic Age as you could call it).

In any case, the 2nd line of the 2nd idea is a must cuz it would make Empire:Total War or any other Total War game way to big.

Fork out every month to play a TW game? No thanks.

Again I say unto you "Source?"
:beam:

dream on..

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Originally Posted by Vuk Brankovic

Again I say unto you "Source?"
:beam:

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Alas, delicious sauce is notwhere to be had.

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Originally Posted by Furious Mental

Fork out every month to play a TW game? No thanks.

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Same. I will not pay to play any game,including TW, WOW or anything, online.

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Originally Posted by {BHC}KingWarman888

Same. I will not pay to play any game,including TW, WOW or anything, online.

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Me either. (which is why I love the NO FEE Guild Wars :beam:)

:jawdrop:
It is unclearly for me how they will manage all this, but my dream is to play current campaigns with human-equal ai ...
But I don't like play any game online with human opponent as they seems to be played. I imagine this campaign as C&C, and totally arcade battles, like in MP now... Cavalry is charging, hitting, retiring, charging, hitting, retiring, stupid.
:gah:

I hate MMO's. :inquisitive:

Sounds dubious to me. MMO TW wouldn't be easy to balance between people who have a life outside gaming (and therefore limited time), and kids living in their parents' basement who live on their computers 24/7.

You'll have to join a faction to get anywhere, and it's inevitable that the highest-ranked players for your faction will be obnoxious clowns... those with the most time to spend online. I've seen it in WoW guilds and it won't be any different here. And the idea of me getting an email message or something when I'm offline and my castle is attacked? I'm supposed to bail out of my day job or anything else I'm doing to run to its defense? Not too realistic. That's the problem with realtime massive multiplayer, in a nutshell.

The appeal of TW as a single player game is that I'm completely in charge of my faction and its fate. I can actually accomplish something, without being a small cog in a big wheel. I admit it would be interesting to see the Medieval map done on a scale that huge, but otherwise... I can't get too excited about it. This doesn't sound like something that would appeal to the kind of person who enjoys strategy games.

If TW has to go multiplayer, I'd rather see just an online version of the current game, with a lobby for finding other players and scheduling matches, and with some way to enforce a time limit per turn so you could complete a game in just a few hours.

Well, it's probably CA's attempt to abandon making AI better... ~D

I would not play a MP Campaigan ethier way. #1, it would take to long, no matter what anyone saids. #2, if someone gets a game gonig with you,and you can "save" it, how do you know that person will play with you again? And #3, for the battles, will you auto-resolve each of them and not fight at least 1 of them?


I like how MP is now. You have to use Tacitcs to actually win. Well, mabye not in MT2W, but in Better TW Games, like STW or MTW, you had to.

That would never work out.

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Originally Posted by Viking

I hate MMO's. :inquisitive:

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I'm with you there brother.

This, if true, would be the absolute worst possible news for the TW series as far a I am concerned. Absolute pants, an unmitigated pile of vindaloo curry induced excreta with none of the post-pub pleasure pre ring-of-fire agony.

I have no wish whatsoever to play online TW campaigns against an other human, let alone the kind of nobby who inhabits the MMO world - anyone played BF, WOW, etc...?

I like to play on my own terms, when and where I like.

Reading the desription I think this is the wet dream of some RTS clickfest, "clan", MMO addict and not something serious.

A nightmare more like.

:no: :no: :no: :furious3:

And Again, any sources or is this just a joke? :inquisitive:

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Originally Posted by Freedom Onanist

I'm with you there brother.

This, if true, would be the absolute worst possible news for the TW series as far a I am concerned. Absolute pants, an unmitigated pile of vindaloo curry induced excreta with none of the post-pub pleasure pre ring-of-fire agony.

I have no wish whatsoever to play online TW campaigns against an other human, let alone the kind of nobby who inhabits the MMO world - anyone played BF, WOW, etc...?

I like to play on my own terms, when and where I like.

Reading the desription I think this is the wet dream of some RTS clickfest, "clan", MMO addict and not something serious.

A nightmare more like.

:no: :no: :no: :furious3:

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1st That I read on the TWC IIRC thats why Ive asked about if anyone got the Swedish PCG magazine...
2nd I wish you all the luck of the world while you keep being dissapointed with each SP TW game released year after year the battlemap PO wont get better...So you will just continue coming here and whining about how bad the PO (programmed oponnent) is and how nonexistant the "diplomacy" is...and nothing will change...

Ah, I see. It's wishful thinking...

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Originally Posted by Geoffrey S

Ah, I see. It's wishful thinking...

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Does anyone have the swedish PC gamer magazine?
Thats what I was asking....
If this rumor is true then we might get our perfect "AI" that we have been craving for...

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Originally Posted by hellenes

1st That I read on the TWC IIRC thats why Ive asked about if anyone got the Swedish PCG magazine...
2nd I wish you all the luck of the world while you keep being dissapointed with each SP TW game released year after year the battlemap PO wont get better...So you will just continue coming here and whining about how bad the PO (programmed oponnent) is and how nonexistant the "diplomacy" is...and nothing will change...

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What are you talking about? Where have I complained about the AI opponents? Or are you projecting your own disappointments on others?

Firstly, I don't mind the AI, it is a computer game, I accept it within those limitations. As far as I am concerned I can't think of another wargame style game that comes close to keeping me entertained as the TW games do.

Secondly, whilst human opponents can be fun, some (many) of them are no improvement on the AI. I don't mean that from a tactical point of view (though some of them are utter rubbish - armies of cannon etc...), just from a logistical one in terms of getting a balanced game going. You only have to look at most online games to see how fundementally unpleasant they can be. To be honest if I want to play against a human I'll go and visit a friend not fester at home and invent some kind of bollox online persona.

Which brings me on to my major reservation with an online version of TW. The problems of getting someone to consistently a campaign game are just too fraught with problems. Any of the scenarios mentioned to deal with this are just compromises. Games like TW offer me the opportunity to get away and play an interesting and entertaining game on my own terms ie I don't have to polute my time with r0x0r l33t sp3ak "yooffs" who "pwn".

TW online? I'm off to play Monopoly or Risk with real people and friends.

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If this rumor is true then we might get our perfect "AI" that we have been craving for...

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Tosh:thumbsdown:

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Originally Posted by Freedom Onanist

Secondly, whilst human opponents can be fun, some (many) of them are no improvement on the AI. I don't mean that from a tactical point of view (though some of them are utter rubbish - armies of cannon etc...), just from a logistical one in terms of getting a balanced game going. You only have to look at most online games to see how fundementally unpleasant they can be. To be honest if I want to play against a human I'll go and visit a friend not fester at home and invent some kind of bollox online persona.

TW online? I'm off to play Monopoly or Risk with real people and friends.

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Depends m8... You can't come on everyday and expect to see good players on all the time. Just have to look awhile.

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Originally Posted by {BHC}KingWarman888

Depends m8... You can't come on everyday and expect to see good players on all the time. Just have to look awhile.

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That's just one of my points, I can with the game as it is. I can play it as and when I like.

Anyway, the game is far too complex and time consuming to be able to co-ordinate humans playing it satisfactorily. Let alone all the downsides of online play anyway (true RTS battles all the time? Clickfest City).

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Originally Posted by Freedom Onanist

What are you talking about? Where have I complained about the AI opponents? Or are you projecting your own disappointments on others?

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Sounds about right to me.

:gah: Enough said.

:laugh4:

I would like the idea. But Im not sure if this game will work with Internet. Graphics look amazing and I dont think it will be possible.

Honestly I woulden't mind being able to play the campaign map online but if it was an online game only where you had to pay so much money every month I would quite angry. I like to play single player once in a while and not have to deal with real people (yes I know I'm anti-social) but if they can make it so the campaign map can be single and multiplayer that would be great.

No thanks, for all the reasons stated above. That would kill everything good this series stands for, and the last hope that it will improve in future.

I see no reason why this, or at least something similar, cannot be accomplished. I doubt the choice of "factions", but rather a "knighthood" with a limited number of units that can be developed upon later. And with this knighthood, you could ally with a factional banner. This would aid you when you were offline as others who ally under your banner would be interested in you retaining your holdings, so that larger armies under this feudal concept could be developed and applied.

Entirely possible.