What if TW ended...

[ollicompolli]

Well, they can do Medieval, Rome or Shogun again. That'd satisfy us grouches and if there was a cheesy Hollywood movie set in the era CA wants to set the game in then they would have hit the jackpot.

If they refuse to do this, then the Russian Civil War might be pretty good. Think about it. A lot of swords involved, some shooting and a huge amount of raiding. It's perfect for the E:TW system. One military advisor called the Russian Civil War "an 18th-century affair" (or something along those lines...).

Relying on DLC's that do nothing for the campaign and screw the multi will be the end for CA.

[antisocialmunky]

Dynasty Warriors except Total War done in anime style would be epic. Realism gets boring after a while.

[Durallan]

For all those asia fanatics I wouldn't be disheartened, mainly because they have done so much in europe I would imagine they are getting rather tired of it no doubt, RTW, M2TW, ETW, NTW.

No doubt the next game will be something along the lines of STW 2 or somewhere in asia, which will be a nice change, although it must be something they can do with their naval engine seeing they spent so much time developing that I would imagine they would be annoyed if they couldn't use that in some way in the next game.

[Belgolas]

ha! I can name plenty of time periods that CA hasn't gotten into. Who ever thinks an ancient Asian time period wouldn't be interesting is completly wrong as I think it is more interesting than Rome. You have MASSIVE armies and more caulters and religions than Europe. You could even do the mongol expansion where there were multiple nations that could have sprung up. The mongol wars are estimated at killing over 40 million (battle, massacre, flooding, and famine). There were also several naval battles in varios places although not as important as the gundpoweder age but still lots of potential.

There is also ancient greece, ancient egypt, babylons, aztecs, myans, tons of african nations, etc etc etc......... Don't tell me there arn't more than Rome, Medieval,and Japan which is just a very tiny part of Asia. There is so much more to explore.

[hoom]

Time and investment is all that's needed for a competitor to the TW games.

Substantially more time & investment than is required for any other game type.
&/or some seriously over-achieving coders.

I think Crytek is probably the only currently known studio I could buy taking it on with any chance of success.
Perhaps some other nobodies out of Eastern Europe? (but there are only so many of those that can happen)

[Ethelred Unread]

Perhaps some other nobodies out of Eastern Europe? (but there are only so many of those that can happen)

Agree completely, hence the lack of competition for CA in this area so far.

I too think that it'll be an eastern european company or how long do we have to wait until China's game developers get up and running?

[nafod]

I really don't think TW applies to well to anytime period that doesn't cover multiple nations with the reasonable prospect of all out warfare, or at least expansionist aims.

For instance I'm a huge American Civil War enthusiast but think it would best be served as a scenarrio ala Kingdoms. How much fun would playing one of two factions be? Plus the whole battle system doesn't seem to adept at handling engagements that lasted multiple days. Ala Gettysburg....

July 1st - the I Corp of the ANV beats back Bufords Calvary and the 1st and 11th corp of the AOP (these forces retreat South, cross the Potomac and end their turn right next to the Rebel capital of Richmond VA.

July 2nd - the Remaining 5 corps of the AOP attack the I Corp of the ANV (The II Corp arrives as reinforcements). Things were going well for the Rebels until an artillery battery turned 180 to fire at an errant union calvary brigade and took out Ambrose Powell Hill. The I corp of the ANV retreats accross the appalachians ending up in the area of Columbus Ohio. The II corp retreats N to Albany NY. In the meantime the 1st and 11th corp of the AOP along with Buford's calvary lay seige to Richmond VA.

July 3rd - Longstreets III Corp of the ANV arrives to perform Pickett's charge. It's a slaughter as expected and this stack retreats south west towards Lynchburg VA. The AOP does not pursue the rebels as their calvary ranks seem to have mysteriously thinned considerably while trying to run down routing enemies.

July 4th - Someone trys to move a gunboat up the Mississippi to blockade Vicksburg MS and the game crashes.

Using Empire as the current example for how well CA can craft a gunpowder battle, I must say I was disappointed. In M2TW the gunpowder implementation was fun, it was a curiousity that came along late game and was a welcome change from the trebs and catapults.

Additionally I found the battles of M2TW and RTW much more interesting, the BAI seemed to handle melee combat much better. As an orderly assault or, in the case of missile superiority, wait till they come to us strategy seemed to fit those in place at the time much better than Empire's charge calvary at artillery and make the infantry dither about aimlessly.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

The interesting periods for CA to portray are near limitless. The amount of periods that CA can promote successfully to a mass market is frightfully small.

Average Joe is a dumbass.
"ZOMG Samurai, ZOMG, kniggets, ZOMG Romans, ZOMG, Kniggets again, ZOMG muskets" is about as much recognition as could be squeezed out of Average Joe for the previous titles in the series. Anything more obscure then that and marketeers would be having headaches. Personally, I think they might be a smidge lazy not to try. Build it and they will come. It's a risk, and when millions are spend risks are avoided.

Even stuff like the Pelopponessian Wars or Thirty Years' War would be somewhat hard to pitch because not much is known about it by Average Joe. And these are among the most significant and iconic wars in human history! You can forget about a TW game about the Khmer Empire! I'm amazed they even dared tackle the age of Marlborough and Louis XIV. I doubt it would have happened if it weren't for the American War of Independence being included in the sales pitch!

So we re-fight familiar wars at Gettysburg, St.Lo, Waterloo, Cannae or Agincourt for the umpteenth time.

[Quirinus]

Personal wish is for CA to do Rome again, on a new engine. RTW is a good game, but there was also a lot of wasted potential...

[Wishazu]

I think that if CA are going to revisit any of their previous titles' time periods then I think Rome TW2 will be the most likely candidate. Think about it, you have various different cultures and religions and the naval engine won't be wasted.

Besides, I think Naval battles will be more fun in this period, you won't have to worry about the wind powering your ships for a start.

[DisruptorX]

Dynasty Warriors except Total War done in anime style would be epic. Realism gets boring after a while.

That depends what you mean by "anime style". The Dynasty Warriors games are in manga style, but its rather subdued and well done. If you mean saucer sized eyes, hell no.

I've wanted to see a 3 Kingdoms: Total War for a while, I just find the period more interesting than Feudal Japan. Now, its not as popular as Japan, but I think it would still find a big audience. 18th Century Europe, afterall, is certainly not a common setting for a video game, even in the strategy genre.

As for the original question: Total War has no competition. I'll continue to buy and play these games as long as they are made because, despite the flaws, there is nothing else like them.

[antisocialmunky]

Well, that's is a generalization, you are correct except that 'manga' is also an umbrella term for a variety of styles.

But yeah, something stylized may be fun as TW has really hit the uncanny valley with ETW.

[Brutus]

First post here in years, so be kind...

I would love it if they did a game about the 16th-17th century: Wars of Religion, Dutch Revolt, English Civil War, Anglo-Dutch Wars, the Wars of Louis XIV, the European expansion into the West and East, etc, etc.

Maybe a bit similar in gameplay to Empire, but I was a bit disappointed they left the 17th century out!

[Nelson]

Welcome back, Brutus!

I was hoping we would see the 30 Years War too.

[Miracle]

I'd rather wait for CPU and GPU technology to advance to the point where we can see hundreds of thousands of well-rendered soldiers on the battlefield. Right now we can only do a few ten thousands - scarce as many as the vanguard of imperial armies in the days of their power.

As for Asia: Total War, I think Elmar put it best - the Average Joe problem is real and exacerbated with high development costs and SEGA. You can make a lot more money if there's a white guy on the box cover. The only exceptions are ninjas, Ryu or fully covered blokes like Master Chief.

[ReluctantSamurai]

July 1st - the I Corp of the ANV beats back Bufords Calvary and the 1st and 11th corp of the AOP (these forces retreat South, cross the Potomac and end their turn right next to the Rebel capital of Richmond VA.

July 2nd - the Remaining 5 corps of the AOP attack the I Corp of the ANV (The II Corp arrives as reinforcements). Things were going well for the Rebels until an artillery battery turned 180 to fire at an errant union calvary brigade and took out Ambrose Powell Hill. The I corp of the ANV retreats accross the appalachians ending up in the area of Columbus Ohio. The II corp retreats N to Albany NY. In the meantime the 1st and 11th corp of the AOP along with Buford's calvary lay seige to Richmond VA.

July 3rd - Longstreets III Corp of the ANV arrives to perform Pickett's charge. It's a slaughter as expected and this stack retreats south west towards Lynchburg VA. The AOP does not pursue the rebels as their calvary ranks seem to have mysteriously thinned considerably while trying to run down routing enemies.

July 4th - Someone trys to move a gunboat up the Mississippi to blockade Vicksburg MS and the game crashes.

TW has already ended for me.....I stopped buying with M2. If someone new steps in when CA bites it, and can produce a quality product, I'm in.

[antisocialmunky]

... Wow, I missed that post. Goodjobsir.

[Goaswerfraiejen]

TW has already ended for me.....I stopped buying with M2. If someone new steps in when CA bites it, and can produce a quality product, I'm in.

Quoted for truth. My experience with M2 discouraged me from buying Kingdoms and Empire, and it will continue to do so in the future. Also worthy of note: I wouldn't be able to run anything past M2TW on this computer, no matter how much I wanted to, and buying a new rig is simply not justified by games like ETW at this point.

I have in no way regretted my decision(s), and continue to enjoy playing RTW EB a LOT. I like it so much that I am entirely indifferent to Total War's demise.

[Rilder]

I Say CA should think about letting it go... they won't since its probably a cash cow but still, if things are gonna keep getting worse and worse (I don't know if it has really since I haven't played ETW yet (7.2 gigs left! AKA 6 days!)) Then they should just let it go... In like 10 years or so the open source community might take the reins and start making some really good remakes.

[Fisherking]

Sooner or later everything ends but I don’t think it is time for TW to go the way of the passenger pidgin just yet.

In a month or two we may even know what the Next Total War will be.

I am betting on Rome II Total War...that seems safe enough.

They, and by extension Sega, have a significant portion of their hardcore fan base ticked off at the moment, with what the fans view as broken promises and substandard product.

If I were them I would be looking for ways to reverse that, at least to some extent.

It is just my thoughts but what would make the largest number of dissidents happy would be mod tools and showing further support of the mod community.

Most people don’t mod and perhaps most don’t even play mods but they do view it as an indicator of the company’s good will toward the fans.

[Furunculus]

i'd like another shogun total war

[gollum]

Jack Lusted has hinted that advances made in artillery modelling in ETW/NTW will be relevant for future TWs. Considering that CA must have already, at least partially been working on it, in all probability this means that WWI will be the next TW game, based most likely on the ETW/NTW engine.

[Samurai Waki]

I don't know if Id go as far as WWI I think a real empire tw is more likely, Colonial Empires all at their zenith, and rising powers such as Germany and Japan, Id be terribly disappointed if they skipped this period and went straight to ww1

[Royce]

I'm with you I think a remake of shogun TW with the way forts and castles are able to be attacked and defended would be awsome. Shogun TW was bad when it came to defending a Castle. Great Idea!

[gardibolt]

As far as I'm concerned, TW has ended. Empire is literally unplayable due to freezes and crashes. So MIITW was the last of the franchise, never spending a nickel on their products again. See ya, don't let the door hit ya.

[al Roumi]

Frankly, whatever comes next from CA would do well to be detailed, pay some sort of heed to historical accuracy and of course challenging and stable.

A return to Rome would be ok, if done with a broader and deeper view of the civilisations of the time (less focus on the romanii for a start please), but I agree the the Chinese 3 kingdoms period would be very interesting -mostly because i know very little about it. Sengoku Jidai might offer CA a more manageable chance to reclaim some of their kudos if they were to do it again in style (they shouldn't have to do much more research on the period for one).

[The Stranger]

i dont see why they can't make a WW1 total war...

[Meneldil]

Because the whole trench warfare idea doesn't work very well with the current TW engine? If a TW was set during WWI, it would have to be completely reworked from scratch.

As for myself, TW ended with RTW. I played MTW literally for hundred of hours, I tried to get interested in RTW, couldn't before EB and other mods. Same for M2TW, and unfortunately, ETW doesn't allow mod anyway.

[The Stranger]

Because the whole trench warfare idea doesn't work very well with the current TW engine? If a TW was set during WWI, it would have to be completely reworked from scratch.

As for myself, TW ended with RTW. I played MTW literally for hundred of hours, I tried to get interested in RTW, couldn't before EB and other mods. Same for M2TW, and unfortunately, ETW doesn't allow mod anyway.

i think you are right there though... RTW was the last great game. I enjoy NTW but i bought it for almost nothing... its fun (maybe im less critical cause i never played ETW) but there is little replayability, little variaty on the map and on the battlefield. and diplomacy is kinda impossible. but then again its been a while since i played a seriously good game... i think Company of Heroes was the last one... and now i cant even play that because of stupid internet registration and stuff... so im stuck playing the oldies, CoD2, AoE3, CoH singleplayer, MTW1, RTW and ofcourse FM2007 haha

[The Stranger]

Frankly, whatever comes next from CA would do well to be detailed, pay some sort of heed to historical accuracy and of course challenging and stable.
.

the historicall accuracy in ntw i think is better than it has been since mtw. atleast there are no real fantasy units (apart from maybe ski troops), and the backup info is atleast moderately detailed and worth the read.