Another Next Total War Poll

[PBI]

Ideally I would like Asia or WWI in that order, if they could be done right.

Realistically I seriously doubt either would be done very well, so maybe it would be better to go for Rome or Shogun 2; as hoom said, I would rather have a game which is not too ambitious in scope and which is well implemented than something which tries to be the "best game ever" and falls short. Also, I care sufficiently little about the settings that I won't mind giving it a miss if it's another mess, but enough that I would be interested in playing the game if it is good.

The only setting I would be really iffy about is Medieval 3, I don't see what could be added by revisiting the setting yet again. I would probably be inclined not to bother with it unless it turns out to be really great.

In any event I think the next game is likely the franchise's last chance; CA badly needs to repair the damage done by ETW, and I think breaking the series of progressively more unfinished games we have had since Rome with a slick, finished game with realistic ambitions is more important than the specific setting.

[Durallan]

IDK if I'd buy an asian total war, I might buy Rome Total War 2, but I think they should do Shogun 2 (or Asia) depends how far away the release date is, I guess itd be around 2011, so I'd probably buy it, buut I dunno, while I'd probably prefer something in europe or the entire world, I think all the people that really want the asia setting deserve something by now

[antisocialmunky]

East Asia or WWI.

[hoom]

In further explanation of my earlier statement: The prospect of a WWI:TW scares the crap out of me.
I can barely conceive of how that could possibly work, let alone for CA to execute such a massive change to the needed level of polish.

I could potentially go for a Greece:TW with Greek infighting, colonisation, Carthage vs. Syracuse (?), Persian invasion, Trireme battles etc.

I really don't want to see the TW series stagnate into doing the same periods over & over.
Its definitely too soon for a return to Medieval (M2 was already too soon!) & Rome but I think its best for the next one to 'rebirth' the series by going back to Shogun, probably Greece following after S2.

Shogun 2.
Keep it small, keep it tight, make it work properly.

[pevergreen]

Shogun if it looked awesome, or Rome.

[peacemaker]

I have a feeling it's going to be an Asian:TW. CA isn't going to want to put the brand new engine to waste, and This way they'll be able to implement some gunpowder units.

Keep it small, keep it tight, make it work properly.

And my E:TW folder is only what? 10gb? Look at the maps. That doesn't look like it's going to be too small.

[hoom]

I mean small as in the scope of the project ie plan something that can be relatively easily completed & made to work properly.

Part of the reason that CA is really the only company making TWish games is that nobody else is crazy enough to make games of such sweeping scale & many features that must pose massive technical/programming challenges.

They have mostly pulled it off in the past but the launch quality of Empire, residual bugs (including many lingering in previous TW games) & increasing fan hostility shows that they've been getting too ambitious so its time to cut back to something more manageable with more focus on producing a good game.

[Braden]

Asia: TW

I’d go for that, a semi-revisit of Shogun. Similar to E:TW and N:TW however in that the main game (i.e. the Empire game) is the full Asian sub-continent, China warring states, India the whole gambit…dammit you could even include Mongols again and the Americas (in line with the claims the Chinese visited first).

THEN the expansion would be full Shogun II…simples see *squeak*

Keeps the same game engine, same format as current games…main then an expansion…and keeps us oldies hooked as we wait to revisit Shogun again but with *shock* 3D animations!!

I’d post on the official forums but ezboards and me just don’t get along (in other words all my logins don’t work anymore).

So, feel free to suggest on those boards anyone if you want….

If they did this, kept the engine the SAME, keep all the FIXES they’ve put out for Empire and just concentrated on getting the units right, maps right and the last remaining game play issues right…CA could win us back.

They mustn’t try to re-invent the wheel again, Empire was clearly too much of a leap over Medieval II for them (lords knows why though)…keep what works NOW in the new game, we don’t need any concentration on “greater enhanced graphics” or “advanced particle systems”.

Just get the GAME PLAY right!

[Zenicetus]

Here's another angle on the "next game" question. Since full 3D naval combat is the big new feature in ETW (and I mean that in terms of sexy trailers that help sell the game)... which choice would make the best use of the naval combat engine, both for tactical interest and to help sell the game?

I think that's a strong case for ancient Greece or Rome (preferably Greece, for me). There have been enough movies showing navies of oared ships fighting with archery, primitive artillery, and ramming, for people to relate to easily. And it wouldn't require a major overhaul of the naval combat engine since this is all close-range fighting that fits within the scope of ETW's naval combat engine. Steamships already move (more or less) like ships under oar power. Boarding and capture could still be a factor, and it just needs a new tactic for ramming.

Ancient Asia had naval battles, but I think they were using smaller ships and mainly as archery platforms. Mostly small-scale coastal battles, with some river combat in China. I may be wrong (I'm not that well-versed in the history), but it seems to me that naval combat in ancient Greece around the time of the Persian and Peloponnesian wars would be more "cinematic" and better for selling the game. Also fun to play, if they did it right.

Medieval III isn't a time when ship combat was very interesting, and I think that's a low probability anyway since it was the last period covered before ETW.

Naval combat in WW1 wouldn't work well, for the same reasons I posted above about long-range artillery and air support. They would need to vastly expand the battlefield area for dreadnoughts pounding away at each other, along with scouting (and bombing) from airplanes. They'd also have to figure out how to incorporate the early submarines. It's just not a natural fit for the current ETW engine without making it much more complicated.... and I think (as said above by others), what we want is a tight game with good AI coding that wouldn't require massive additions.

So that's my best argument for Greece: it's the best way to exploit the naval combat side of the game. As an aside, I think the concept of schools, colleges, and the tech tree (i.e heavy emphasis on science instead of religion) is also a more natural fit for Greece than for Asia, or a Medieval III.