Quote Originally Posted by Zenicetus View Post
Yeah, but that's a double-edged sword. Without historical accuracy to lean on as a framework for the game, Ca would have to license an existing fantasy system ("Dungeons and Dragons®:Total War"), or else invent a fantasy system from scratch. That's what Bioware is doing with Dragon Age, and it's what Stardock is doing with their Elemental: War of Magic strategy game. It's what Blizzard did with Warcraft.

It's great when it works, but it's not easy to design a coherent background universe that isn't dumb, silly, or just another Tolkien ripoff. An interesting and challenging fantasy melee/magic system takes a lot of work. How long has Dragon Age been in development now, as Bioware's attempt to ditch the D&D license? Something like eight years?

With historical warfare strategy games, all of that structure comes "free" with a little research, and the programmers can focus on coding the mechanics. Since the main complaint everyone seems to have with CA is the quality of their AI programming (or to put it differently, the ambitious scale of the game compared to what their AI can handle), I think they're better off not trying to design a fantasy world from scratch. Especially since other game companies are already in that market niche with current or upcoming projects. CA has a niche in historical wargaming that they should hang on to.
A triple-edged sword? I think the problem we have seen in all the TW games, bar Shogun (maybe?) which took most people by surpise in a setting most didn't know that well, has been the depth of the armchairs a few of the self-appointed "experts" sit in. One man's history is another's fantasy. The little dictum about history being written by the winners really does skew the one's point of view on many things hence all the "CA don't know what they are doing", "CA are anglo/euro centric", "blah, blah", ad nauseam.

If I were at CA I'd be pushing firmly for a fantasy setting, and not LOTR - just as many people with opinions. The creative effort would be well worth it to avoid all the flak about incorrect, under-powered or unfair representations.