Playable factions

[Sir Beane]

I agree with india, I don't think CA choosing to have Britain as a playable faction is because of national pride, and I don't think France is in because we British love to hate them. It would be silly to have a game based around colonial empires and not feature the country that historically had the largest empire the world has ever seen. The same goes for France, it was huge historically, and therefore should be in the game.

However I do think that the Thirteen Colonies are only a playable faction so CA can put "Play as a founding father!" and "Fight for independence" on the box. Historically they were very small (until later on of course) and weren't really a major power. In fact I think they were pretty lucky that one of the real powers of the time didn't make a more concentrated effort to take them out.

As for fleshing out 12 or so factions more than the otehrs, I think it's a good idea. They obviously don't have the time to make all 50 factions stand out (unique units, voices, traits, buildings, ships, architecture etc.) but atleast a reasonable number will. I would rather play a game with 12 great factions and 38 good but samey factions than a game with 50 similar factions.

Focusing on just twelve allows them to add in a bit of local flavour and atmosphere that has been missing since Medieval.

[PBI]

It's sad but its' true. Thus the starting playable factions, after the tutorial (yes you will have to play through the tutorial again.) will probably be the ones they have put the most time in.

I believe the tutorial campaign this time around will be the "Road to Independence" campaign, and I'm pretty sure CA have said it will be optional.

[Sir Beane]

I believe the tutorial campaign this time around will be the "Road to Independence" campaign, and I'm pretty sure CA have said it will be optional.

They have done. In the recent Gamereactor Interview:

"It's an episodic campaign, the road to independence, set during the period of the foundation of Jamestown all the way through to the American war of independence. It's a type of campaign where if you want to play it you can, if don't you don't have to. You don't have to play it to unlock the grand campaign, you can just go straight into that"

[Michiel de Ruyter]

Assuming these are the options, and starting at 1700:

Austria
Dutch
England/Britain
France
Ottoman Empire
Poland-Lithuania
Portugal
Prussia
Russia
Spain
Sweden
United States*


The ones I would throw out as playable factions (in order of preference):

United States: Not aplayer at all, at best emerging in the early 1800's. Just as India the battleground between the French and British, and this time without powerfull enough native states to form a serious threat. (at least by the time the game starts).

Paradoxically, if not for the struggle between England, France and to some extent the Dutch Republic, it is unlikely that the 13 colonies would even have existed as such, that things would have come to a head the way they did resulting in a cry for independence (mostly fueled by the local colonial elites who saw their power threatened), or would have been able to gain independence (as they were bankrolled by the Dutch, and French intervention decided the war in US favor).
If not for the English involvement in Europe, it is unlikely that the US would have gotten out of the War of 1812 as well as it did, assuming war had again broken out. Similarly, if not for that European rivalry, it is debatable whether the US would ever have gotten to the Mississipi. And it was British power and backing that allowed Monroe to issue his favorite doctrine.

Poland-Lithuania: Very weak internally, and preyed upon from all sides. I think by this time almost allowed to exist by the grace of the other powers.

Portugal: Although perhaps still expanding into Brazil, again very much weakened, and relegated to a third or even fourth rate power.

Sweden: Again in many ways a spent state. It would be hard to get anywhere (at least if Russia, Denmark and the Dutch Republic are modelled anything close to reality). Even more so due to the stranglehold the Dutch had over the Swedish economy (especially the metal industry).

Factions to be included:

The Mughal state: Can you keep your northern neighbours at bay while also nipping European interference in the but?


The most challenging options, I think:

The Dutch Republic: (is economic super power enough to compensate for lack of resources - think mercs, mercs and mercs and strategic marriages to join the interests of the House of Orange with that another state).

Prussia: Can you grow, while balancing yourself between Austria, England (Hannover is a private fiefdom of the soon to be English royal family) and France (who do not want continental rivals).

Austria: Large, spread out but internally weak, a weak economy, and an agressive Prussia and France, and only slowly weakening Ottoman neighbour. Almost the opposite of the Dutch Republic.


Gameplay and coding is going to be hell. Otherwise the game would be so imbalanced that France Britain and Austria should be the runaways in the game.

[Polemists]

Sadly as much as I would love to play Austria do to the fact I could put the royal line back on the holy roman throne once I crush prussia, I think there is no way on earth they are getting rid of the US. It'll be there, it will be annoying, it will be over powered. We are just going to have to accept it.

[Thermal]

People that dont go on forums cannot complain...thus CA doesnt care much about what they get....either way with 0 competition its not a huge concern for them,...

true. but if im wanting something to sell, then putting on the back of empires case '50 fully playable exciting civilzatons to play' would sound much better than '12 playable factions!' just your avarage non-total war person would likely be inticed by the extra choice

[Tantalaul]

Hey i read your posts and you make me wonder why you are so botter that you can't play from the first time your country. My country Tara Romaneasca (Romania) don.t apear in this game like a playlable faction and if i remember well not even in lockable factions in the first medieval and not in the second one so enjoy the game because is just a GAME man !

[Thermal]

Hey i read your posts and you make me wonder why you are so botter that you can't play from the first time your country. My country Tara Romaneasca (Romania) don.t apear in this game like a playlable faction and if i remember well not even in lockable factions in the first medieval and not in the second one so enjoy the game because is just a GAME man !

welcome to the guild, dont worry i will enjoy it, i dont think you understand exactly what im trying to say, either way, if its moddable it wont effect me anyway, im just looking out for those who dont no how to unlock extra factions...meh

[Sir Beane]

welcome to the guild, dont worry i will enjoy it, i dont think you understand exactly what im trying to say, either way, if its moddable it wont effect me anyway, im just looking out for those who dont no how to unlock extra factions...meh

I'm with you Aries777777. 50 factions does sound a lot better than 12, and it makes me wonder why they don't just add the rest in as 'bonus' factions unlockable by completing either the Grand campaign or by completing the 'Road to Independence' story campaign.

It would be interesting to be able to unlock factions by personally beating them on the campaign map. It would give people a reason to play certain factions and go to war on certain factions just to try and unlock them.

[Zenicetus]

true. but if im wanting something to sell, then putting on the back of empires case '50 fully playable exciting civilzatons to play' would sound much better than '12 playable factions!' just your avarage non-total war person would likely be inticed by the extra choice

CA doesn't have unlimited time for programming and play-testing. Would you rather have a dozen or so factions that are well balanced against each other, and heavily play-tested (we hope)? Or that same developer and testing time spread across 50 factions? Which would make a better game?

Personally, I'd prefer a smaller group of well-balanced, well-tested factions that are heavily individualized (unique units, battle speeches, architecture, ship types, etc.), over 50 more generic factions, just so everyone has a chance to play their favorite.

I'm with you Aries777777. 50 factions does sound a lot better than 12, and it makes me wonder why they don't just add the rest in as 'bonus' factions unlockable by completing either the Grand campaign or by completing the 'Road to Independence' story campaign.

It would be interesting to be able to unlock factions by personally beating them on the campaign map. It would give people a reason to play certain factions and go to war on certain factions just to try and unlock them.

Again, I assume (from CA's perspective), that it comes down to limited time for balance and testing. CA has to stand behind the quality of the game. If all 50 factions are unlockable, then sooner or later someone (possibly a magazine reviewer) is going to notice that one of the non-primary factions is too hard to play, or is using generic battle speeches and "borrowed" unit types, or just isn't that much fun to play as the primary factions. From their perspective (making more assumptions here), it's better to let the mod community unlock those factions, because then it's not CA's problem if they don't play as well. And then the mod community can spend the time and effort to tweak the other factions, instead of CA having to do it (and us waiting another year or three for the game to be released).

[Thermal]

fair enough, though its there sale profits at the end of the day

[Polemists]

Yes it is, and so far games with fewer factions have sold better for them then games with more factions.

From pure marketing do you want a 90% review, or a 70% review when the first computer gaming mags begin reviewing it. Reviewers in the magazines never care how many, they care about quality, MTW2 which had far fewer factions then MTW 1 got high reviews, based soley on the factions that were playable.

Factions don't sell a game, quality does.

[Thermal]

Yes it is, and so far games with fewer factions have sold better for them then games with more factions.

From pure marketing do you want a 90% review, or a 70% review when the first computer gaming mags begin reviewing it. Reviewers in the magazines never care how many, they care about quality, MTW2 which had far fewer factions then MTW 1 got high reviews, based soley on the factions that were playable.

Factions don't sell a game, quality does.

mtw2 only got higher reviews because it had less factions? oh yeah cause it was nothing to do with tons better graphics, a new game engine amongst various other things...

[PBI]

Do we really need 50 playable factions? I've been playing M2TW more or less continuously since January 2007 and by my count I've only managed campaigns as 12 different vanilla factions, and several of those were short campaigns I got bored of and gave up on. Having 50 fully playable factions complete with voices, videos and battle speeches would mean I would likely never even use around 4/5ths of the content of the game by the time the expansion, the first big mod or even the next game comes out.

I'd certainly rather have 12 very well balanced and polished factions with another 38 basically playable but a bit more rough around the edges, than 50 virtually identical factions with generic units, differentiated only by a different colour scheme. And if I saw a game advertising itself as having "50 playable factions!" I would probably think "too good to be true, what corners did they have to cut to get that many?"

[Jolt]

Yes it is, and so far games with fewer factions have sold better for them then games with more factions.

From pure marketing do you want a 90% review, or a 70% review when the first computer gaming mags begin reviewing it. Reviewers in the magazines never care how many, they care about quality, MTW2 which had far fewer factions then MTW 1 got high reviews, based soley on the factions that were playable.

Factions don't sell a game, quality does.

...From a pure marketing perspective, I think your marketing perspective is a very funny one.

[Martok]

MTW2 which had far fewer factions then MTW 1

Actually, that's incorrect. MTW has 11 playable factions in the main campaign, 14 if you have the Viking Invasion expansion pack. Medieval 2 has 17 playable factions in its main campaign.

Also, I'm quite certain that neither MTW nor Medieval 2 received the uniformly high reviews scores that they did solely because of the number of playable factions they had. That alone does not mean a game is good (or bad) -- there are many other factors that come into play.

[Yoyoma1910]

Since they're going to have the 13 colonies, I personally demand that their first expansion be Cajun: Total War.

[Polemists]

My only point was trying to emphasis I don't think that more factions will make a game better, I think it's quality over factions.

I'd certainly rather have 12 very well balanced and polished factions with another 38 basically playable but a bit more rough around the edges, than 50 virtually identical factions with generic units, differentiated only by a different colour scheme. And if I saw a game advertising itself as having "50 playable factions!" I would probably think "too good to be true, what corners did they have to cut to get that many?"

I just remeber that in the game of Rome, how I got Barbarian Spearmen, and I don't want to see that again, I want variety.

[Martok]

Stick to the topic, please.

[Pinxit]

Assuming these are the options, and starting at 1700:

Sweden: Again in many ways a spent state. It would be hard to get anywhere (at least if Russia, Denmark and the Dutch Republic are modelled anything close to reality). Even more so due to the stranglehold the Dutch had over the Swedish economy (especially the metal industry).
.

Oh come on! Sweden was a great power at the time the game starts. Actually, the game starts 1700, the same year as The Great Northern War starts. Sweden had, at the time, one of the best military forces in Europe. Commanded by the military genius Charles XII Sweden won several major victories and defeated Denmark in the first year of the war in such a way that it could not participate in war until several years later. The same year Russia was temporarily defeated when 8,600 Swedish troops defeated 37,000 russian troops in the battle of Narva, one of Swedens greatest military victories ever. The coalition against Sweden was in this time of the war, and actually during most of the war, ready to grant Sweden a very good offering of peace. Had it not been for Charles XII stubborn view of the war, convinced that everyone that declared war on him should surrender without terms - Sweden would have emerged only slightly hurt by the war. It wasnt until the battle of Poltava as the luck ran out for Sweden, and thats 9 years after the war started. If nothing else, it will be a great and entertaining challenge for the player to start the game with a faction currently in a state of war against 5 other countries at the same time.

Its ridiculous not including Sweden in the list.

A country that by its own manages to fight a 21 year long war against: Russia, Denmark–Norway, Prussia, Hanover, Poland-Lithuania and the Electorate of Saxony is ANYTHING but spent. It was spent _after_ the war, but since the war didnt end until 21 year after Empire: Total War starts, you might want to reconsider that statement.

[Martok]

Welcome to the Org, Pinxit.


For what it's worth, CA has fairly strongly hinted that Sweden will be one of the playable factions. Of course they can't confirm that until the list has officially been released, but it does look likely.

[Polemists]

I wonder how long it will take them to put out the official list, or how long before someone gets some leaked faction page screens again. Hmm, wonder if there will be some Dec Empire Total War magazine articles....I can hope.

As for playable, I'd like to see Austria still, I just fear they will get the back burner.

[Nelson]

I would certainly miss a first rate power like Sweden. For all of the reasons Pinxit mentioned (Excellent inaugural post BTW).

Austria must be playable, no question.

[Martok]

I wonder how long it will take them to put out the official list, or how long before someone gets some leaked faction page screens again. Hmm, wonder if there will be some Dec Empire Total War magazine articles....I can hope.

If I were CA, I'd probably wait until the day the game goes gold, so as to minimize the screaming that will surely commence.


I too worry about Austria, yet I still think they would pretty much have to be playable.