The Warpath Campaign Expansion DLC

[Tsavong]

Looks like they have some more DLC a campaign this time.

Hi guys,

The official downloadable expansion pack for Empire: Total War has been announced! Click here for full details on The Warpath Campaign!

The Warpath Campaign will be available in October 2009.

Update 1.4 will be released tomorrow - Tuesday 22nd September!

Thanks,

Mark O'Connell
(aka SenseiTW)

http://store.steampowered.com/app/10606/
http://shoguntotalwar.yuku.com/topic...-revealed.html

[Fisherking]

Well, that is interesting...

Is the release tomorrow with the patch?

A whole campaign and Native American at that...

[Peasant Phill]

You'd reckon they would announce the release of patch 1.4 a bit sooner. What do I care about a DLC, I'm gonna test 1.4 first thing after work.

[Slaists]

Looks like they have some more DLC a campaign this time.



http://store.steampowered.com/app/10606/
http://shoguntotalwar.yuku.com/topic...-revealed.html

I, for my part, couldn't care less about some new North American Indian wars (those wars were won mostly by measle-infected blankets not major military confrontation anyway). I'd much rather prefer CA expanded the GC map to include Africa and South-East Asia.

And they should give us slave trade while they're at it... What's an XVIII century plantation economy without slaves!? On that note, they should include Berbery Pirates (and the like) enslaving coastal Europeans and selling them off in African slave markets. This was still happening in the XIX century.

[Mailman653]

The new detailed map might be used for mods......and the DLC does look interesting but I think I'll pass.

[Peasant Phill]

I've read the links now and it actually says 'Official expansion".

So CA actually made an expansion with nothing more (They don't mention anything more at least) than a map and and some units from a conflict that was uninteresting any way you look at it.

Please confort me and tell me there will be more expansions coming.

[A1_Unit]

I'm dissapointed with this new DLC.

[Graphic]

I've read the links now and it actually says 'Official expansion".

So CA actually made an expansion with nothing more (They don't mention anything more at least) than a map and and some units from a conflict that was uninteresting any way you look at it.

Please confort me and tell me there will be more expansions coming.

Instead of giving us "ETW Kingdoms," they're just going to sell the campaigns individually for a low price. Expect more mini-campaigns in the future. This is the reality of the modern gaming industry. Full-on expansions are dead. Everything is sold cheap and in small pieces as DLC. The end result is basically the same, though, except you can save money by cherry-picking only the stuff you want.

Personally, I think this looks awesome.

[Servius]

I'm glad patch 1.4 is coming out tomorrow.

As for the DLC, I think I'll pass. I hope I can say this without offending any Native Americans who may be reading, but I'm not interested in an expansion that focuses on them. For an expansion, the game must get bigger. IMO, the best way for ETW to get bigger is to expand the playable map (Africa, South America, Southeast Asia, etc.)

Of course, as always, the AI needs to be fixed first. I'll not spend any more money on this game until the DAI and CAI are fixed and start making rational decisions.

[Sheogorath]

The sheer number of anachronisms in that trailer made my brain hurt.

[Meneldil]

A campaign aimed to the american market and players. Why am I not surprised?

Not that I care about it really, I've played ETW 3 times, but this is kind of silly, given they were much more important events back then than this. As said, native nations were defeated by blankets more than by firearms. French revolution? Beginning of colonisation? China?
It looks like they went for the easy way: add a new tech tree, a few new units and nations, a few provinces and there you go. No new gameplay feature, no nothing. And they're gonna sell this 'expansion' not even worthy of being called an amateur mod for 20€, fallout-3 style.

I'm not even going to complain about the historical accuracy of it (hopefully, indian nations won't be able to field elite armies larger than those of France, Spain or even Westphalia) and the new silly indian tech tree, because well, a game has to have gamey mechanics.

[Dead Guy]

The trailer narrator might as well have said:
White man came across the sea, he brought us pain and misery

This doesn't work at all for me. If they're aiming for the American market, wouldn't the civil war be much more interesting? I don't know much about it, but it feels like it would suit the engine better as well. Getting states to commit to your side in the conflict could make for some interesting gameplay, but I guess they don't want to work on that, just throw out a mini campaign and cash in.

[Prussian to the Iron]

looks like crap; the campaign map hasnt even been expanded! all that happens for $10 is that the indians get more units and buildings!

I'd much rather have either a full campaign of north and south america starting when john smith arrived, or the american civil war. that i'd pay 10 bucks for, but not a couple of units.

heres hoping they come out with a kingdoms-like expansion with all the campaign DLC's in it in a year or 2.

[rvg]

bzzzzzp. I'm giving this one a pass.

[Zenicetus]

The trailer narrator might as well have said:
White man came across the sea, he brought us pain and misery

This doesn't work at all for me. If they're aiming for the American market, wouldn't the civil war be much more interesting? I don't know much about it, but it feels like it would suit the engine better as well. Getting states to commit to your side in the conflict could make for some interesting gameplay, but I guess they don't want to work on that, just throw out a mini campaign and cash in.

Speaking as someone in the American market, I wouldn't like to see a Civil War expansion, for many reasons:

1) It's been done before, many times, and in ways that don't require jerking around a game engine that was designed to cover a much larger part of the world with more factions. A good Civil War game really needs a more focused approach, with much more local detail than we see on the campaign map.

2) What I've enjoyed the most about the Total War series are the battles between dissimilar armies. For me, it's just more interesting to see something like barbarians vs. Roman troops, or desert horse archers vs. armored European soldiers. It's tactically interesting, in the earlier eras where gunpowder didn't level the playing field and make armies nearly identical. ETW is already a much less varied game; in many battles you're fighting an army that looks just like yours except for the color of the uniform. The U.S. Civil War is like that, only more so. You have two armies fielding the same units with only very small variations. It doesn't matter which side you choose to fight, it's just a different colored uniform.

3) By the time of the U.S. Civil War they were using rifled weapons, which means much longer engagement distances. The game engine would have to be re-worked to handle that, and the battlefields should also be larger. I don't see CA making that big a change. And it would be ludicrous to have troops with rifled weapons just plopped into the current engine, where they can't fire until they're right on top of the enemy.

4) The Civil War was the start of a shift away from Napoleonic tactics (disciplined ranks in open field warfare) and towards the start of trench warfare, fighting from heavy fortifications, sappers to undermine those fortifications, etc. The game engine doesn't support this type of combat.

5) It doesn't bring anything interesting to the naval combat side of the game, other than eye candy (Monitor, Merrimac, etc.). The South didn't have a real navy, and the North blockaded the Confederate ports for the duration of the war. A Confederate navy would only be interesting if it was completely a-historical and much stronger than it was in reality.

The "natural" expansion for ETW was into the Napoleonic wars in Europe which is better suited to the game engine. Unfortunately, they decided to spin that off into what sounds like a heavily scripted, episodic game like the Road to Independence in ETW, instead of incorporating it into the main campaign as a seamless expansion. Bah, humbug. At this point, I just hope the 1.4 patch gives some new life to the main game, and I'm going to pass on both the expansion and the Napoleon game.

[Prussian to the Iron]

I believe you are wrong on several fronts:

Speaking as someone in the American market, I wouldn't like to see a Civil War expansion, for many reasons:

1) It's been done before, many times, and in ways that don't require jerking around a game engine that was designed to cover a much larger part of the world with more factions. A good Civil War game really needs a more focused approach, with much more local detail than we see on the campaign map.

really? I haven't seen any recently, or at least not RTS's about it. and it's not like nothing has been done about warpaths setting or time. AoE and empire earth are 2 notable examples.

2) What I've enjoyed the most about the Total War series are the battles between dissimilar armies. For me, it's just more interesting to see something like barbarians vs. Roman troops, or desert horse archers vs. armored European soldiers. It's tactically interesting, in the earlier eras where gunpowder didn't level the playing field and make armies nearly identical. ETW is already a much less varied game; in many battles you're fighting an army that looks just like yours except for the color of the uniform. The U.S. Civil War is like that, only more so. You have two armies fielding the same units with only very small variations. It doesn't matter which side you choose to fight, it's just a different colored uniform.

I have a big beef with this. They did not have the same units in any way. Confederate soldiers were generally less trained, and worse at ranges, but better in a melee. they also had worse weapons (many had muskets) and more patriotic fervor.

3) By the time of the U.S. Civil War they were using rifled weapons, which means much longer engagement distances. The game engine would have to be re-worked to handle that, and the battlefields should also be larger. I don't see CA making that big a change. And it would be ludicrous to have troops with rifled weapons just plopped into the current engine, where they can't fire until they're right on top of the enemy.

No. just no. every single soldier did not use rifles, in fact far fewer than generally thought. most rifles were given to the more elite units, and even then that was almost exclusively in the north. cannons mostly had rifling though.

4) The Civil War was the start of a shift away from Napoleonic tactics (disciplined ranks in open field warfare) and towards the start of trench warfare, fighting from heavy fortifications, sappers to undermine those fortifications, etc. The game engine doesn't support this type of combat.

this has never stopped TW from portraying native american units as well-organized, professional military units (see M2 kingdoms americas campaign and ETW american theatres)

5) It doesn't bring anything interesting to the naval combat side of the game, other than eye candy (Monitor, Merrimac, etc.). The South didn't have a real navy, and the North blockaded the Confederate ports for the duration of the war. A Confederate navy would only be interesting if it was completely a-historical and much stronger than it was in reality.

while that may be true, lots of people have complained about the naval combat in the game. I honestly wouldn't mind having the option to take it out.