Another Next Total War Poll

[caravel]

Disagreed. Sorry, but to me an Asian setting all too often means a fantasy one.

Not necessarily. When it comes to "historical accuracy" none of the TW series have been very hot on it. In fact STW was closer to feudal Japan, at least in the general "feel" than MTW or RTW were to their eras.

I mean by that the distorted, romanticised, ingorant view we Westerners have of Asia.

A generalisation. It could also be argued that we westerners have the same "distorted, romanticised, ingorant view" of Europe. Have you ever seen an historically accurate 'historical' movie? Do you consider, Spartacus, Gladiator, 300, Troy, etc, etc to be historically accurate? Was RTW historically accurate?

Unfortunately the TW series has proven fromt he very firs all too easily susceptibel to the more "fantasy" units.

Yes, the whole series.

Anyone remember that maniac with an oversized katana able to take on units all by himself in Shogun? If you'll pardon my French, absolute ****!

The Kensai? He was introduced in the Mongol Invasion ex pack along with the "battlefield ninja". IMHO that's where CA started to go wrong. MTW had the "Hashishin" which were the same as the BF Ninja and many more fantasy units besides. In total STW had about two units that could be considered fantasy units. MTW had lots more, though many people conveniently forget that. Moving on to RTW and the fantasy unit count reaches it's saturation point with chanting druids, screeching women and 10 different types of legionaries, battlefield gladiators, those masked chaps and other assorted nonsense.

So in spite of all that CA got the Roman era right and the Sengoku period wrong because of two fantasy units (three if you include the Geisha) and a bit of abstraction (Noh/Kurosawa influence)?

That kind of infantile, puerile thing is just way too easy for TW under the guidance of Sega to repeat if they go for an Asian setting.

That is not a real argument against CA doing an Asian TW or Shogun II. Using the same logic, R2TW and M3TW would also be a disaster. Games developers have the funds and means to get in the experts (SEGA happen to be an asian company, so I don't see them having much issue finding Japanese historians).

Might as well go for Middle Earth Total War.

And why not?

No doubt in their search for ever greater markets something like this is on the cards - along with a move to console.

Who knows.