Possible Final TW Game?

I just posted in another thread about the latest patch and how it isn't exactly making the good folks who paid money for this game happy. I have not downloaded it and will just deal with my occasional crash.

But I have a certain fear that this may be the last breath of a dieing gaming genre. With the appearant frustration felt by many (I know, vocal minority, but this seems to be a tather LARGE minority), the almost impossibility to develope software compatable with so many variations of machines, and, most importantly, the current economic downturn, will this be the last of the Total War series? I mean, what time period would be the next title that could save CA existence? I have really enjoyed the games since Shogun, but it is going to be very difficult for me to be one of those "as soon as it hits the shelves" buyers that the gaming industry rely on....

What's your thoughts?

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Originally Posted by Devastatin Dave

I just posted in another thread about the latest patch and how it isn't exactly making the good folks who paid money for this game happy. I have not downloaded it and will just deal with my occasional crash.

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I presume you had steam running as you posted this, in which case its likely you have no choice.

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Originally Posted by pevergreen

I presume you had steam running as you posted this, in which case its likely you have no choice.

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Nope, I have a system dedicated to only my Total War habit (offline). I'm have seperate system to hang out with my Org homies and watching two chicks and a cup. :beam:

Final TW Game? I highly doubt it. The game still works well enough for most people, and I have heard nothing that leads me to believe sales have taken a huge hit. People leveled many of the same criticisms at RTW and M2TW, and however justfied they may have been, the fact remains most people still had alot of fun with those two games. The negative (over)reactions or typical of any PC release, especially a well known one. People expect games to work out of box perfectly, and the fact of the matter is, with a few exceptions, no complex PC or even console game has ever been able to do that.

Most people, including myself, are still having alot of fun with E:TW, and I fully expect continued ETW support by CA, and future relases (personally hoping they stay away from Shogun, my least favorite of the series, and return to Ancient Rome and Greece for some Trireme battles).

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Originally Posted by Devastatin Dave

Nope, I have a system dedicated to only my Total War habit (offline). I'm have seperate system to hang out with my Org homies and watching two chicks and a cup. :beam:

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Oooooooh.

You dirty dirty boy. :beam:

You could jsut disable steam autoupdate you know...

as the way it looks there will probably be a dozen more total war games at least. Unless things change.

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Originally Posted by Devastatin Dave

I mean, what time period would be the next title that could save CA existence?

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That's the big question. I would hazard a guess at 1800-1900 opium wars in china etc. I just cannot see the game working in later periods though, WW1 TW for example :no: . Also I don't see how they could apply many of the features they've added into earlier periods, (MTW has been done to death); revisiting STW would be fun but the theater is to limited. Personally I'd like an RTW2, sea battles are viable, also the map scale wouldn't be restrictive, the romans started trading with china before they "fell".

Empire is running great on my system and i'm enjoying it immensly. If CA wants to build more, I will buy. I think an expansion like Kingdoms would be great. Campaigns could include Napoleonic Wars, American Civil War, Crimean War, The Austo-Franco-Prussian Wars, Opium Wars or anything Victorian.:yes:

Since these type of games (strategy) do not lend themselves to playing well on consoles, I do not think that this will be the last game and that there will be even an add on for the series (at least one)..

The problem with these games isn't the failures, it is the successes. After an initial success with a game, some large software company swoops in and attempts to cash in on the type of game producted. Eventually, those companies strangle the innovation out of the game. You should not worry though as nature abhors a vaccuum.... other parts of the world will (and are) already writing new gaming software to take up the slack .

In 2-3 years we will all remember things differently, jaded.

MTW2 was also said to be the final nail in the coffin numerous times, as far as I remember!

I hope not. I've enjoyed almost all the total war games and there add-ons so far. I hope they add Napoleon to the Grand campaign in a expansion and extend it into the 1800s.

As for the next game I doubt I'd buy RTW2 as I didn't like RTW as much as the other games and right now I can sill play it I want to so wouldn't be interested in buying a remake. something set in china or the east would be fun I think as I know little about the history of that part of the world.

Simply put, CA make enough money for SEGA.

That means that we'll see more TW games until SEGA don't see it as worthwhile in supporting them - e.g. poor sales.

I think TW games are most suited to the ancient period to about 1900, as the main arms for fighting are infantry, cavalry and (mostly) direct fire artillery of various forms, which are easier to model.

WW1 would be too complex to fit into the TW model, the battles would be fought on the strat map, because how can you model a battle like the Somme that started in June and ended in November? Small engagements wouldn't cut it for me because the bigger picture is much more important in this time period.

That still leaves us with a lot of time left to play with. I can see there being a lot of downloadable content for the current period, inc napoleonic, US civil war, opium wars etc.

TW hasn't looked at China & surrounds yet, and will probably revisit the Ancient World again next as this is probably the next popular period of history.

:2cents:

Got to say as well that I am one of the lucky ones and have only had 1 CTD when a savegame wouldn't work, and got round it by using the last autosave.

I surely hope this is not the final Total War game. Total War is my favorite franchise game, and there is not one I have not bought. I think I would cry really hard if this were the last one. :bigcry:

Twould totally suck if this was the last one, and I for one would think that a Mongolian Total War or Africa total war would be quite nice, as in both you have a rather large area that was conquered by a much smaller force than the armies that they faced. Thats what I realla want to see as a next game!

I wouldn't mind seeing Total War: Rise of the lower kingdoms.. :D or, "Ancient Empires".. still tons of time periods untouched. Imagine fighting around the great pyramids, or destroying the hanging gardens..

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Originally Posted by Namarie22

I wouldn't mind seeing Total War: Rise of the lower kingdoms.. :D or, "Ancient Empires".. still tons of time periods untouched. Imagine fighting around the great pyramids, or destroying the hanging gardens..

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Also, the Eygptians traded with ancient South Americans.

So having a game set in such a time period, with the ability to fight anywhere in the World would be pretty amazing.

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Originally Posted by Prodigal

That's the big question. I would hazard a guess at 1800-1900 opium wars in china etc. I just cannot see the game working in later periods though, WW1 TW for example :no: . Also I don't see how they could apply many of the features they've added into earlier periods, (MTW has been done to death); revisiting STW would be fun but the theater is to limited. Personally I'd like an RTW2, sea battles are viable, also the map scale wouldn't be restrictive, the romans started trading with china before they "fell".

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WW1 or even WW2 are highly doable. The basic concept would be pretty much the same, the real time battles would just play like Men of War or World in Conflict.

I would like to see E:TW recast as 20th Century: Total War. We've had the biggest, nastiest wars in history (so far) in the 20th century. The research & trade mechanics could be tweaked. The map would have to be bigger, i.e. with many more regions. The downside: unlike ancient history, there would be no end to the amount of people offended one way or another.

A 19th century version is also doable. There were plenty of wars in those times as well!

The AI would have to be tweaked to make continuous fronts. We would REALLY have to be able to coordinate attack to IE. cut off a salient from 2 directions.

ETW hit number 1 in the UK all format charts. That's a first for a TW game AFAIK, and rare for any PC game. Why would it be the last? Each game in the series sells more than the one before. That's what matters most; game development is a business.

There's still plenty of eras CA could use, and with M2TW they proved they do not mind revisiting a period.

It can't be the last.

I haven't bought this one...we'll see how the patches go... The TW series cannot fold until after they have released (and patched to perfection-for once) a Napoleonic Total War.:party2:

It's all my fault, I talked DevDave into buying ETW. And truthfully, I quite like the game, bugs and all. (I would be less sanguine if I didn't think that the Empire team was hard at work tweaking AI and killing bugs.)

Anyway, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa, dear Dave. In the long run you'll be glad you bought it, I promise. No, really.

If they revist Rome, I will buy it, period. I do not care if they turn it into a card came, if the next is Rome I am buying it.

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Originally Posted by antisocialmunky

You could jsut disable steam autoupdate you know...

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Not totally effective as Steam has a habit of resetting to auto all on its own.

If you only play SP I suggest my method:
- Set Steam to not start automatically on start-up in MSCONFIG - that way you actually have to start Steam yourself
- When I play I disconnect the internet modem, hit End it All to shut down all uneeded programs and then hit the Empire icon
- Steam will then start and give you the option to play in off-line mode.

This way YOU control when you do an update.

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Originally Posted by Graphic

WW1 or even WW2 are highly doable. The basic concept would be pretty much the same, the real time battles would just play like Men of War or World in Conflict.

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I don't think you can have a total war game just set in just World War One or Two. One set between 1900 and 1950 would be I think enough time to do it. But I think it would need a lot of work as they would have to add air power to land and sea battles and not have it too over powered. Might need a new engine to do it right.

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Originally Posted by frogbeastegg

ETW hit number 1 in the UK all format charts. That's a first for a TW game AFAIK, and rare for any PC game. Why would it be the last? Each game in the series sells more than the one before. That's what matters most; game development is a business.

There's still plenty of eras CA could use, and with M2TW they proved they do not mind revisiting a period.

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It also topped the NPD North American charts. For PC at least. Also pretty impressive :yes:

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Originally Posted by Graphic

WW1 or even WW2 are highly doable. The basic concept would be pretty much the same, the real time battles would just play like Men of War or World in Conflict.

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I really don't think that the TW model is set up at all for these wars. If you want the grand strat map then you can't have the real time battles because each section of the front is huge, (=lots o' regions) and the battles take months, whereas prior to 1900 (most) battles could be fought decisivelyin a day, or a couple of days.

If you have smaller battles for specific objectives then where is the strategic importance after each battle? You would be fighting constantly and each turn on the strat map would be one day - which isn't practical for a game purporting to be ww1 TW or ww2 TW. For both of these how do you represent naval or aerial supremacy?

For ww1 or ww2 you either need to concentrate tactically, or strategically, I don't think that the TW model is ready to do both.

Aren't there enough WW2 games already?

I certainly hope not.
Darn your pessimistic outlook!

:furious3:

We can always go into modern war... or back to Rome and Shogun.

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Originally Posted by Ethelred Unread

Aren't there enough WW2 games already?

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Are there a lot of WW2 games? Most definitely. Are there enough good ones? Not nearly.

I'm not sure how the TW series can incorporate tanks and especially planes in its RTS portion without a major overhaul. Then again, we've had 2 major overhauls of the campaign map while the battle portion is basically the same as Shogun's.

I hope TW builds an Asia-centric game for the ancient and medieval time periods. Asia technically might be large and consist of several factions, but I don't think there is a market (yet) particularly aimed at China map only or India map only, this may change in due time.

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Originally Posted by Ethelred Unread

I really don't think that the TW model is set up at all for these wars. If you want the grand strat map then you can't have the real time battles because each section of the front is huge, (=lots o' regions) and the battles take months, whereas prior to 1900 (most) battles could be fought decisivelyin a day, or a couple of days.

If you have smaller battles for specific objectives then where is the strategic importance after each battle? You would be fighting constantly and each turn on the strat map would be one day - which isn't practical for a game purporting to be ww1 TW or ww2 TW.

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This is true. 20th century warfare is not compatible with Total War's strategic and tactical scaling. The game would have to extrapolate tiny tactical skirmishes into front rupturing major victories on the strategic map.

In modern warfare tactics are still important battle by battle but are insignificant compared to industrial might and staying power. Something might be doable that would allow tactical fights to exist with strategic maneuvers but it couldn't be TW as we know it.

Empires is not the end of the line. FBE is spot on. If Total War keeps on making money, CA will keep on making Total War.

1815 to 1906 would be a good time period. Pre-dreadnought with longer ranges for rifled muskets and eventually the Maxim. I would like the RTBattle option of digging in and of course all units would have the option to spread out. Pre dreadnought battles were envisioned at ranges of less than 5000 yards. I think it would be fun to advance the Zulu to high tech status with the option to buy western advisers or send students to university. Would provide the option to reverse western Imperialism or maybe the French or Germans would eclipse Britain. What if Germany moved east at a earlier time or Russia procured a warm water Port or France ignored the Monroe Doctrine or Britain went in on the side of the South. The possibilities are endless. What if you played as the USA and could stave off the civil war or no matter what, the war starts in 1861. How about China actually getting it's act together and fending off the west and establishing a Constitutional Monarchy or Republic. The tech tree would be fun and give the opportunity to really have some lopsided battles. Anybody remember Omdurman?:egypt: Needle gun vs. Spencer. You could concentrate on industrializing the South prior to the civil war and abolish slavery early and then dominate the North. I get chills just thinking about Imperialism: Total War or ITW. Maybe CA will read this and I can get a royalty on the Name.

Something which would be interesting would be a game which incorporates all of the 'old world'. Dark Ages. All of Africa, Europe and Asia. No Americas.

They could easily do it. There are mods for MEII which extend the map plenty in scale..

I think PC games are going to struggle in general. PC's are too diverse and complex for games to be reliable on them. I upgraded my PC in anticipation of ETW, and I can't play it because of the BSOD. I would rather just have a console and know the game I get will work on it.

I suppose the ultimate goal would be a game that stretches from rome to around 1850. Would be complex game, but what a game!

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Originally Posted by Devastatin Dave

I just posted in another thread about the latest patch and how it isn't exactly making the good folks who paid money for this game happy. I have not downloaded it and will just deal with my occasional crash.

But I have a certain fear that this may be the last breath of a dieing gaming genre. With the appearant frustration felt by many (I know, vocal minority, but this seems to be a tather LARGE minority), the almost impossibility to develope software compatable with so many variations of machines, and, most importantly, the current economic downturn, will this be the last of the Total War series? I mean, what time period would be the next title that could save CA existence? I have really enjoyed the games since Shogun, but it is going to be very difficult for me to be one of those "as soon as it hits the shelves" buyers that the gaming industry rely on....

What's your thoughts?

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I don't know if they'll continue making them, but it looks like I'll stop buying them. All sizzle and no substance just doesn't do it for me. :rtwno:

I gave up on Paradox's engine because I just got too bored waiting on their "real time" clock to tick on. I've been increasingly irritated by the inconsistencies and errors of the GUI in this engine, the lack of any credible AI, and now the closed binary format that has to be cracked just to mod this beast. (The M2:TW "counted string" format was bad enough, but this one is just nuts.) :tomato:

I've done my share of finding and documenting the bugs, :spider: so you know I have a reasonably high pain threshold. But for me, this one just isn't any ... fun.

Its hard to mod because CA wanted it to be modded a certain way. They just didn't have the mod SDK ready at release... like everything else :-p

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1815 to 1906 would be a good time period

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Your description of this time period sounds pretty intriguing.
Its also got NZ maori wars, opening & rapid power rise of Japan & a bunch of other interesting bits.
This is probably about the only period I can think of a global TW working.

I think I'd like to see CA do a more focussed smaller scale game though, one where getting everything right is more doable.

BTW, I couldn't find the RTW tank vs nazgul video on youtube. I could only find this: http://fr.xfire.com/video/797ed/

If R:TW and then M2:TW didn't sound a death knoll, I don't think E:TWs relatively few issues are going to do it. Personally i'm hoping the next one goes back into ancient warfare, still waiting for a Three Kingdoms TW.

Any time I play World In Conflict I can hear it scream "MODERN TOTAL WAR" and if it had a campaign map it would be exactly that....
Rember that all TW games are on a scale...why not WWII? I just hope to live to see a WWII TW game...the era has been represented miserably in pathetic Dune2 clones...

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Originally Posted by Graphic

WW1 or even WW2 are highly doable. The basic concept would be pretty much the same, the real time battles would just play like Men of War or World in Conflict.

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Simulating battles that stretched out for hundreds of miles would be difficult. How would you do that? Could battle maps be linked together so you could play sectors of a battle seperately yet as if they were being fought simulataneously? Also you'd need to expand the capacity of the engine to handle more units. Finally there's the problem of handling air warfare.

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Originally Posted by Tully Bascombe

Simulating battles that stretched out for hundreds of miles would be difficult. How would you do that? Could battle maps be linked together so you could play sectors of a battle seperately yet as if they were being fought simulataneously? Also you'd need to expand the capacity of the engine to handle more units. Finally there's the problem of handling air warfare.

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Just play the World In conflict demo....aircraft is handled there pretty well...

Aside from Anti-Helo Fighter Sweeps and Helo v Helo dogfights, World at War ignores the air war completely (no AWACs, no fighter intercepts, no radar-guided SAMs, etc.)

Would absolutely love a WW2 version, although as others have said, not sure how it would happen. Anything is possible though. Didn't they put WW1 on a questionare about the next TW?

Ed. Also there's a built in sales base that buys any WW2 themed game.. of which I'm a part.

How about this: The next Total War game could cover a new period of history or revisit one from a previous game, but the innovation could be the addition of a 3rd level of gameplay to the current strategic campaign and tactical battles. The new type of gameplay would be the incorporation of a RPG and/or action element. This may not be too far-fetched given CA's foray into console games and the success of other historical-themed action/RPG games like Assassin's Creed, not to mention the mission-based element of RTI, M2TW and RTW.

Think about it: Let's say they re-do Shogun, but add a new element where each turn gives you the opportunity not only to plot strategy and fight tactical battles, but also perform missions on an individual basis, perhaps as a ninja or samurai leader of some sort, and the missions make a difference for you in the strategic and tactical levels. For example, maybe you're a ninja on an assassination mission, and rather than "auto-resolve" it, you actually have to infiltrate your target's city and kill him using an interface similar to action or RPG games.

It could work in other eras too. In ETW's timeframe, you could role-play a Sharpe-type character. In RTW, think of plotlines and characters similar to those of the HBO show "Rome."

It might sound cheesy on first blush but could make these games even more immersive, and a way to revisit previous eras like Shogun and do something really different from the original.