Quote Originally Posted by lenin96 View Post
Total war games have been evolutions of their predecessors, not starting a completely different thing, otherwise it wouldn't be the Total War series, it would be something else.
This is not strictly true. RTW is not a direct evolution of STW/MTW but is loosely based upon them. It is a total rebuild that uses none of the same code that was used in the first two games. The campaign map game is entirely different and battles, though similar, play very differently and the AI and balance is notably worse. This has not improved in M2TW where we now have combat that this based on the animations themselves and where the individual men in the unit "queue up to fight".

In reality CA have gone for visuals and "effect" rather than for strategy and good gameplay. This new title also has me worried. You see before M2TW was released, the same thing happened as is happening now. Much speculation, people posting preposterous claims that M2TW was a new engine built from the ground up, etc, etc. It turned out that M2TW was still based on RTW. I think the same will go fo this game. From the screenshots I would say that battles at least are certainly based on the M2TW engine and that the real selling point here is the naval battles. The hope is that the naval battles will attract another horde of fans and overshadow the flaws that will still be present in the land battles.

With this release CA have shown once again that they are only prepared to go with the same map or the world theatre and will not return again to smaller scale conflicts such as the Sengoku Jidai. The reasoning behind this is that CA are trying to hit the biggest consumer base possible - that is that the fans of the previous games don't matter as the reasoning is that you will always buy the new games anyway. It shows that CA are no longer individuals willing to take on something as risky as STW, to make a name for themselves in the games industry.

The truth of the matter is that the smaller conflicts suit the engine better, they suit it perfectly in fact. The whole design, AI, diplomatic model and battlefield implimentation of the TW games is that of the Sengoku Jidai. Smaller armies marching across smaller regions to meet each other on a small battle field is what TW games are about. The simplistic diplomacy is also more suited to a local conflict rather than a national one. This is why civil war type scenarios suit it best. Ideally CA should concentrate on smaller threatres such as feudal Japan, China, Greece, the Middle East etc. China in particular would make for a fascinating TW game in itself, but CA knows that many of it's fans dismiss it because it's not a conflict based on, in our around their own countries/cultures. This is why CA goes with the "same old same old" every few years. And this is what ETW is, the same factions in a different era.

The next game will probably be Rome 2 or Medieval 3. I honestly don't think CA will do Shogun again as they fear that it won't sell.

IMHO the time has come for CA to forget the battles, as they're just gloss nowadays and make a decent turn based game with strong campaign map, AI and advanced diplomacy. In the days of STW and MTW the battles were everything and a vibrant MP community sprang up around these. RTW changed this and nowadays you play the game and fight the odd easy battle, just for kicks - if you feel like it - and the campaign map is in fact the game. Prior to this the campaign map was a simple means to manage your growing kingdom and the battles themselves, i.e. their success or otherwise, were the foundation that the kingdom was built upon and were the centrepiece of a TW game.