Suggestions for the next TW game

[CraigTW]

Hi guys,

You might have noticed I posted up on TWC and our forums for suggestions as to what should be in the next TW game. Well you guys are included in that, too.

Please reply to this thread with any suggestions and I'll make sure they're all put into my report.

Thanks!

Craig.

[Andres]

A suggestion that keeps coming back around here is the Warring States Period.

I'm well aware that this might not be a very popular opinion, but personally, I wouldn't mind to see a fantasy TW game. A Wheel of Time TW would be great, but a TW game set in George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire universe would be awesome too.

EDIT: btw, you can find a lot of discussion about this in this thread

[xploring]

I like the Spring-Autum, Warring States period too, been reading a lot of stories about it. But lack of historical records, and primitive weapons and tactics may count against it. Chariot (horses with soldiers in towed carts) seemed to be the premier weapon in those days. Romance of the Three Kingdoms is probably the most well-known and most marketable for Total War in China, but I am happy with any period in Chinese History.

Edit: misunderstood thread purpose, added feature wishlist/ideas at TWC
Disorganized with not much consideration to feasibility
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...21#post9727621

[econ21]

Wearing my moderator hat, let's keep this thread clean - constructive comments only; no CA bashing - to and fro stuff can go in the "What's next thread" that Andres linked above.

Wearing my gamer hat, here's my 2 cents: I'd like to see a Rome 2, taking a similar "sandbox" approach to RTW but with the battlefield and especially campaign AI brought up to STW2s standards.

But Andres makes an interesting point. Being a big fan of HBOs Game of Thrones, if I were in CA, I'd also explore the possibility of getting a licence for that source material. It would fit the TW approach perfectly and seems to be a setting that has legs (five plus books, HBO confirming second season...).

[Vladimir]

My question is what's next after Total War? Even though Rome 2 is the most logical choice and China would be nice I'm curious about what you guys are up to after this. Most all of the interesting time periods are covered. Maybe something about behind the scenes interactions that lead up to war. Battles should be the climax. I don't know what time period or area would be best but I've always been fascinated with northern Italy. It all seems so easy to conquer in so many games but the area was hotly contested by many players for quite some time.

I know TW is about, well, war, but I'm more interested in the battles fought along the road to war.

[hoom]

I think this request is not so much about the time/places we'd like to see but game features to make TW games better?

Game engine changes I'd like to see:

Bigger armies.
Historically TW games have tended to be scaled something like 10|1 in terms of number of soldiers on the field.
Partly thats about keeping unit counts controllable, partly about performance.
TW is so far ahead of any other game in terms of number of units on screen at once that there really is no competition but its still disappointing to find yourself playing a big historical battle like Cannae with only 3-6K rather than 30-60K soldiers.
Third Age gets decent numbers in some battles & its great fun to load up a custom battle with a super-elite elvish army vs 8 armies full of the lowest quality biggest number Ork units but it still rarely manages battles equivalent to Helms' Deep let alone the attack on Minas Tirith.
Keeping it controllable can be done by splitting armies into sections controlled by AI generals eg Left, Middle & Centre with the AI generals being orderable in some detail but the AI would have to be really making good use of terrain & units.

Fix unit pathfinding on walls & quit having it so that walls basically offer no restriction to enemy movement.
In Shogun, Empire & Napoleon all units can just walk up to walls and climb up them without hesitation. Typically the approach is done with few casualties contrary to history (& presumably at least in part due to the comparitively small army sizes).
This basically makes it impossible to emulate historical cases of small garrisons holding key fortresses against massive armies.
Even in Med2, Rome & Med1 it was always too easy to bring along a bunch of siege gear then blow so many holes in walls that they might as well not be there so you end up defending the central square instead.
Historically it was about making one or two entry points not 8.

3rd level of the game.
Currently Theatre level maneuvre is mixed in with the Strategic/Logistic level in a way that makes counter marching, allied actions & strategic retreat (which was one of the great things about Shogun & Med1) nearly impossible, while also unnecessarily cluttering up the Strategic/Logistic map.
I say bring back the Drag & Drop proper Strategic level, with maneuvre only occuring where opposing armies meet in a province (zoomed in province Theatre map) several Theatre turns per Strategic turn or a period of realtime maneuvre per Strategic turn.

A defending army needs to have a chance to counter the actions of an invading army.
In Empire for example a single unit can pop into a province, raid several villages & move back out of range of a much larger defensive force then do it again next turn inflicting an infeasably high economic toll.
Historically Leonidas had warning & opportunity to setup the delaying force at Thermopylae. If the Persians invaded in the current style they'd just come out of nowhere & sack Athens then plonk down outside Corinth before the Spartans could do anything.

Its also currently impossible to retreat in the face of a superior army most of the time.
Out of the fog of war comes a massive army, marches up to you & attacks. If you retreat you probably won't get away far enough & the enemy just marches up again, you have the non-choice: fight an unwinnable battle or lose the army outright without inflicting any casualties but now you are probably on weaker terrain than you were on before retreating.

In Shogun & Med1 in the face of superior invaders you could strategically abandon the province without loss of soldiers (adding to defense of the next province) or retreat to the castle then send in a relief force next turn or two.
This was to the advantage of the AI at least as much as the player.

Baggage train/camp.
A bunch of historical battles hinged around threats to, capture or successful defense of one armies' baggage train/camp, so I think it'd be a good thing to bring that into TW battles somehow.

Veteran & Avatar customisation in singleplayer campaigns.
I enjoy setting colour schemes & giving custom titles to units in the multiplayer of Shogun2 & its kinda disappointing being unable to do the same in singleplayer.
I guess its arguably a historical thing but I think its the sort of bending history to our will that is OK, plus some would really enjoy naming & colour scheming as close to historically as possible.

Bring back Town view & add Army view.
Town view in Rome was cool.
I also want to see my armies marching around in glory. Either a camp/town parade if they've been sitting around or marching along a road/track if they've been moving that turn.

Improve visual quality of the campaign map.
The battlemaps of Shogun2 are amazingly atmospheric but the Strategic map still looks like a tarted up version of the Rome strategic map & the Rome strategic map was already visually sub-par when it came out.
This incongruity breaks my immersion in a way the old parchment style never did (I could believe I'm sitting in a tent looking at a map).

Related to the above 2: Continuous zoom.
Play RUSE to see how cool this can be. At full zoom out you're in a command bunker looking down at a 3d war map with tokens representing your units.
You have background bunker visuals & audio but you can scroll in continuously down to a close-up view of individual tanks & soldiers in appropriate scale with properly proportioned & good looking towns etc.
At intermediate ranges the level of detail & the schematic/realness gets gradually changed in a way that feels just right.
Probably would be impossible to do on the scale of full TW campaign map but might be doable for individual provinces via Theatre mode.

More Python.

Most of all: Keep the scope to things you can implement in budget & time.

-----------------------------
But since others have mentioned time periods...
I agree with Warring States or Three Kingdoms.
Its an area that hasn't been previously covered, has wide variety of interesting weaponry & bunch of factions ie should be pretty ideal for a TW game.

I'd prefer a Successor/Helenistic period centered game over a direct Rome sequel.
See Rome Total Realism & Europa Barbarorum.
Doesn't mean Rome isn't involved but gives that wider historical flavour & context.
Plus polyreme naval battles :D
A Western Mediterranean focus like RTR VII would also be very cool while enabling the Punic wars to be covered in much better detail than in the bigger map of RTR6 & EB.
Could even be done in several parts with smaller campaign expansions adding more detail/provinces & start position/time periods: West (Carthage, Iberia, Rome & Gauls), East (Successors, Steppe & Indians), Greek peninsular (various Greek wars, Persian invasions, rise of Macedon), Italy (rise of Rome, Gallic invasions, threat of Carthaginian intervention).

You could buy the rights (hah! $$$) to LoTR & put Third Age: TW mod in a box.
I'd buy it no question as is but with extra possibilities provided by official rights (access to Weta art, designers etc) & being put out by the game engine devs it could be even better.
But a non-Tolkien based fantasy setting I wouldn't be interested in.

[Daevyll]

I'd like a game based on the 16th and 17th century European wars. 30 years' war, 80 years' war, reformation, inquisition, Ottoman expansion, the conquest dof the New World etcetera.

Religious strife would be a major factor strategically, as would the different dynastic relations and territorial claims.

Tactically it is interesting as well, with the shift from late-medieval warfare to early 'modern' combat.

[Servius]

In the TWC thread, Craig specifically said "features" so I'll leave the era and locale alone.

Regarding features...

1) If/when you return to the age of sail or beyond, I'd like to see coastal battles, with ships acting like off-map artillery. For example, if an army in Empire makes an amphibious landing, the army can land but uses all its movement points. So it can't move off the beach until the next turn. Well, if you're defending, and you attack an army on the beach in that situation, the battle should take place on a coastal map, with any neighboring ships displayed in the water, and you should be able to trigger a cannonade (like as a general special ability, on a timer) that brings up an AoE cursor to target the bombardment.

2) If/when you return to a colonial period, it would be nice if you included the entire globe, not just little trade theatres like the Ivory Coast. Even if it were just coastal provinces, I'd like to be able to land, take over or build a trade castle, and possibly have to defend those with regular army units. So, you wouldn't have to map out the interior of Africa, but at least have a string of colonial provinces along the coast instead of just those anchorages/trade nodes.

3) I really miss the ability to award titles to units, as you could in MTW. You've gone a long way to bringing that back, first in Empire (with the government ministers), and now even closer in Shogun 2 (with the ability to award up to 4 commissions to specific generals). I'd like maybe a few more commissions/titles for generals (for example, in MTW, you could award a province governorship AND a privy council title), and they titles were appropriately named for each faction (which won't apply in a game like Shogun but probably would if you return to Europe). But I'd also like the ability to award battle honors after particularly awesome victories. For example, right now in Shogun 2, if you have some kind (not sure if it's Heroic or Decisive, or something else) victory, a little gold monument appears on the campaign map, and you can hover over it to see who faught who, what year, what the name of the battle was, etc. Well, when you win a battle that triggers the creation of monument like that, I'd also like the ability to grant (or have automatically granted based on kill/death ratios) battle honors to specific, individual units. Battle honors would add something to the units stats (+2 morale or +1 Melee Attack). This would help distinguish individual units. I really liked how in Empire each unit was numbered and you could change their names. In Shogun 2 you can't do that. All units are anonymous, and except for experience, they're all the same. I find I don't care for my Shogun 2 units anywhere near as much as I did for my Empire units, and I'm sure it's because there's no way to distinguish one from another.

4) In Shogun 2, you named the prefecture capitals, but not the ports, farms, etc. In Empire, every building in a region had a name (Oxford, Lyon, etc.). Shogun 2 feels more anonymous because of this, and that decreases my engagement.

5) Be sure to retain the 4 season turn format, no matter what future games have as a start and end date. The number of turns between the arbitrary start and end dates is immaterial. The immersion and beauty that comes with 1 turn / season, and the added tactical variety it can add to battles, is just too good to give up again.

6) Significantly increase the default range of ships, and moderately increase the range of agents, and somewhat increase the range of armies on the campaign map. The first thing I do when I get a new TW game is see if there's a Darth Mod for it yet, because one of the usual improvements that mod makes is to increase the range of units, especially ships starting with Empire. The default ranges are always rediculously short, especially for ships, and it's SO frustrating. Please talk to Darth, figure out what methodology he uses to determine the ranges, and adopt something close to that as the default in future TW games.

7) Brainstorm some way of incorporating the Avatar system into the single-player game. As a diehard SP player, I'm never going to use MP, but I like where you were going with the customization and personalization of an avatar on the MP side. It would be great if the SP side could benefit from that too.

8) The Ninja movies are great. I'm so glad they're back. They're a lot more attractive than the ones in RTW and M2TW and more interesting in their settings, methods, etc. Please retain these in future TW games.

9) If multiple generals are present in the same stack, allow all of them to get experience from victories. Even if you set up a heirarchy, where the top guy gets 100%, and the 2nd highest ranking guy gets 80% and so on, that would be cool.

10) It would be even cooler if allied units on the same battlefield could benefit from the bonuses of their general. For example, in S2, you can develop your generals to be good with cavalry vs. infantry, offense vs. defense, etc. Let's say I have 2 stacks from my own faction one that's mostly infantry and led by a general with infantry bonuses, and another mostly cavalry with a general with cavalry bonuses. They both fight in the same battle, and since they're both from my faction, I control them on the battlefield. Well, I'd like the infantry to get the bonuses from their general and the cavalry to get the bonuses from THEIR general. Conversely, you could allow for all general bonuses to apply to all units in a stack if a stack has multiple generals. This would be similar to the way some of the Commissioner bonuses apply to all units while some apply only to units in a stack led by that particular general.

11) It would be cool if you could add in some kind of dedicated troop transport ship class. In Empire, it always felt a bit unfair that I could transport 20 units on a single Sloop, or in Shogun 2, on a bow kobaya.

[edyzmedieval]

Couple of features I'd like to see. :)

1. Mod Tools - by far the most important, it enables us to create a much better TW game experience and improve on the original.

2. Unit "character" - even with regiment names in NTW and experience, they still feel just like any other different unit. Bring on some ideas such as different uniforms, different "battlefield character" to make them more unique. (look at the Infanterie de Ligne "The Brave" from NTW, the name says it all).

3. More economic options, the economy needs to be developed further.

4. Individual taxation, bring it back, every province must have it's own dedicated taxation system.

5. Allow more units in a single army, allow around a maximum of 40 units per army to make it much more representative to the battles of the periods.

6. Develop the skill tree - even if so far it makes the general/agent more "unique" once he dies I can make another one just as easily, the impact is not as profound as one might expect.

7. Supply chains are a must by now, they were somewhat represented in NTW but nothing too special, it was very easy to replenish your whole army in a province with a Supply Warehouse. Make it more complex so the attacking of supply chains and convoys will really have an impact.

8. Commissions/titles for generals. This is especially evident in the Medieval period and also in the Roman period where it was a must to give titles and concessions out.

9. Trade must be made more complex than just working your merchant ships in a trade node. Ability to control tariffs, imports and ensure protection of your own merchant fleets would be a nice touch to make it more interesting.

10. Develop the multiplayer. The first step with Shogun 2 has been excellent and I want you to keep this feature and improve on it, a great plus for CA.

:)

[Graphic]

Craig, please ask the developers on my behalf why they keep taking out good features for no reason

Bring back the ability to tax each settlement differently.

Bring back the ability to make generals governors.

Bring back the additional general stats like dread/chivalry, acumen, piety, etc.

Bring back dueling the next time it fits the period.

Bring back the M2TW and RTW mercenary system.

Make it possible to trade individual resources.

Being back the ability to trade research and regions in diplomacy.

Bring back the ability to assassinate nearly anyone, including your own generals and family members.

Bring back the trade theaters the next time it fits with the game's setting.

Bring back the feature where when a unit has upgraded armor, their armor changes in battle too.

Make the character skill trees larger. Right now pretty much every general is identical until you get 3-4 stars.

Bring back admiral ships. Having to put a land general on a ship is weak.

Bring back the ability to demand the surrender of besieged troops.

Bring back the ability to capture units in battle and then ransom/execute/release them.

Old system for archers and horse archers, including the range advantage gained from being on high ground. The ETW/NTW cone of fire just doesn't work with arrows.

Bring back interception on the campaign map.

Change it back to where you had to wait a few turns when besieging to make ladders and battering rams. I thought the grappling hooks were lame, now they just climb 100 foot castle walls with their bare hands.

The battle reinforcement system of Kingdoms.

More random events on the campaign map like plagues and natural disasters.

GET RID OF PERSISTENT VETS IN MULTIPLAYER. It destroys game balance and the importance of tactics. The best build wins now, not the best tactician. Just keep the retainers and the avatar skill tree, and have matchmaking only match you to a similarly ranked avatar.

[Monk]

Seconding the micromanage tax request. The global tax sliders are fine for large empires, but the option of micromanaging each settlement would at least be nice. There's no reason why we can't just have a box that says "micromanage tax" that we can check and then set taxes city by city. Unless there's some kinda engine limitation.

Bring back the M2TW and RTW mercenary system.

Bring back the ability to assassinate nearly anyone, including your own generals and family members.

Make the character skill trees larger. Right now pretty much every general is identical until you get 3-4 stars.

All of these, 100% agreed with.

Character skill trees are a great addition to the game, but more diversification before the third star would be great. One or two extra talents in those early tiers would go a long way to making generals have a distinct feel from the very start of their career.

And yes, let me kill my own generals. The loyalty system is back, which means from time to time I have to deal with insurrections. Giving me the choice to force a seppuku only works for the Sengoku period - let me deal with trouble makers in other ways.

[HopAlongBunny]

I'm stuck on China.

Warring States period you have changes happening in army composition and bureaucracy. The possibilities are endless for research options; much like MTW some research options would grant titles, capacities and offices.

If you can get that game to "feel" right, the market is enormous.

[JeromeBaker]

1. I liked how your units in ETW were numbered. Allow us to have the ability to name/customize units. It is not as much fun when all your units are generic like in S2TW.

2. Depending on the time period add in mercs.

3. I liked in previous TW titles where you could click and drag assistants from one General to another. It was neat to pass down a veteran advisor from a father to a son who is just getting started.

4. I liked in S2TW how you could appoint certain offices to your generals that would make them specialized. This would fit well into other TW games.

5. Some TW games had this, some did not. Have reinforcements come in from the direciton they are at on the game map, I like being able to set up the battle and know my reinforcements are comming from behind my army instead of to the front right.

6. Allow us more control of Vassals so it feels like they are an extension of our own empire.

7. Make the tech trees broader so it is harder to research all techs. This makes each faction more unique since there would be more options to choose from.

8. I liked when you could ransom, kill, or release captured enemy soldiers. You had to take into account how these choices would affect your general's traits and the ransom was nice when you need $.

9. Allow multiple generals in one stack to get experience instead of just the leading one. It doesnt have to be equal among all generals present, but at least something.

10. After individual units reach a certain ranking/veteran level allow us to customize them. The customization does not have to be that in depth, just allow us to make a simple choice between traits like a bonus to defense, attack, aim, replenishment rate, loyalty(would make it harder for them to waiver and retreat and/or bribe), or movement rate. This in a way goes along with my number 1 point. The more customizaiton we have with our units I beleive goes a long way in the replayability of the game. I invision putting together an army of my favorite units who have faught well for big missions or to accompany my favorite general. Then if we could make them have individual traits, units with better defense could hold the line, units with better attack ratings would flank, units that replinsh faster would be used in the front line where you have more casualties, and ones with better movement rate would chase routed armies that are retreating. The possiblities are wide open here and I think people would really dig the options. This would be particuarly awesome for R2TW. I would like to create monster legion units to mimic Ceaser's 12th legion (I beleive it was the 12th, can anyone confirm?). Units with identities also keep me more interested in fighting the battles as best I can and makes each battle important even if its just chasing a few rebels.

11. Rome 2

[Nelson]

I would like to see Rome 2.

I would also like to see a game with moats! Six Total War installments and still no moats!

[edyzmedieval]

As for the game, I vote for a Medieval 3 Total War.

[A Nerd]

Medieval 3, ancient China or ancient Greece! :D

[jackie_fish]

Muiltplayer has come leaps forward in shogun but I am not sure about you guy but I see it as a start to something. You guy should look at other successful muiltplayer games such as say starcraft with all the separate ladders ect and life a practise league would be cool to see.
Also whilst talking about starcraft when you go to see a battle replay you can throw up stats of all different thing and i think that would be really cool to see in the new Game.
As the next game I assuming wont be about civil war you will be able to play different faction with different build and troops. I would love to see the player pick a leader of a nation and lvl up that nation and your own leader. obviously you could keep people to only one faction but maybe give more benefits for winning with the faction they chose.
Jake

[Marshall Louis-Nicolas Davout]

India total war.

China total war

[Prodigal]

ROME 2 please...

[aimlesswanderer]

Most definitely China - before the Qin unification till the Han, the decline of the Han (Rot3K), fall of the Tang and the Song-Jin-Mongol wars.

India - vast numbers of wars down there

Assyria, Egypt, Babylonians & the Hittites

Persia - the rise of the Achaemenids

[The_Emperor]

personally I have to agree it would be nice to cover an era or locale we have not had before.

China warring states.

Rise of the Mongols (with a map stretching across all that would become their empire would be very cool with many other factions and rival steppe clans to fight)

[Arjos]

Any new period...
No II version 'til technology is way ahead of the previous title...

[Daveybaby]

In terms of features:
Ability to control multiple armies on the battlefield, all we need is one key to cycle through the available armies. That's all.

In terms of setting:
A fantasy setting, something along the lines of master of magic (lots of wildly different races, lots of magic, lots of magical creatures). Like has already been said, this will really piss off a lot of people, so i suggest licensing out the engine to another devteam to produce it, while you do something historical in parallel (or vice versa).

As far as historical settings goes, my vote would also be for the warring states period - although there is an awful lot of chinese history that would also be very suitable (maybe one game with 2 or 3 completely separate campaigns, each in a different era? A lot of work i guess).

[Marshall Louis-Nicolas Davout]

Most definitely China - before the Qin unification till the Han, the decline of the Han (Rot3K), fall of the Tang and the Song-Jin-Mongol wars.

India - vast numbers of wars down there

Assyria, Egypt, Babylonians & the Hittites

Persia - the rise of the Achaemenids

Yes,
INDIA TOTAL WAR is amazing and a great subject!

[smooth_operator]

I've posted a similar thread in Gamespot months before S2TW went out. And now, my best concept is...
World:Total War
-A worldwide conflict where nations all over the world(Asian,African,European,Native American) clash for continental(and possibly global) domination. I think It's exciting to see how different fighting tactics from different cultures meet together for an exhilarating war experience on a global scale.

[Nikodil]

- Realistic Spotting Rules

I think it would radically improve multiplayer battle game play if there's what-you-see-is-what-you-spot. Woods, buildings and hills should all block line-of-sight. With the right map, you would be able to sneak up your army and attack from a totally unexpected direction. Properly employed scouts would have a more important role, as knowledge of the enemy momevents could be the key to winning.

[econ21]

- Realistic Spotting Rules

While on the subject of realism, I would like to see some development of a more realistic treatment of attrition and supply on the campaign map. There's been progress in recent games - with attrition in winter in STW2, or in Spain/Russia in NTW. And with automatic replenishment of depleted units. However, in real wars, logistics and lines of communication were of crucial importance.

While not an obviously sexy feature to add on to a game, I don't think this would make it more dull as the computer could handle it "under the hood" as it does now with replenishment and attrition without the player having to worry about the tedious paperwork.

I think it could make the SP gameplay more challenging, as logistics are a particular constraint on the "blitz" type player strategies that work so well against the AI.

Modelling lines of communication on the campaign map engine could also add an interesting dimension to maneovuring on the campaign map, rather akin to the modelling of unit facing on the battle map engine.

[seireikhaan]

Feature wise, the big one for me is individual province taxing. It would give the player a lot more flexibility in handling province loyalty while still trying to squeeze enough tax money to support buildings and armies.

Titles, like they were done in MTW, are another thing I miss. Granting generals titles to improve loyalty and provincial prosperity was a great feature, in my opinion.

I would like to see a bit more differentiation in general's skill trees. Its pretty good right now, but as mentioned, I usually level generals up pretty much the same way if I have any plans of using them in combat.

[Arjos]

One vital feature imo is to have factions within factions: as vassals or confederations, able to make decisions on their own...
For example various tribes fighting eachother, but if a common enemy invade they could unite or split into two fronts...

[Marshall Louis-Nicolas Davout]

I want Toal War: Asia for Whole Asia and bored set at Europe right now so will you see the Total War Asia after Rome 2.

Map it must be Asia exclude Middle East or maybe Include if add. They will be no Australia.

Period will be around 1450-1800

Problem is
Voice Actor must be Asian for speak their own Languages

Possible Nation in ATW
China(Maybe Song, Ming or Qing)
Jurchens(Manchus) (Qing if Seperate from Ming)
Korea
Japan
Siam(Known as Ayutthaya)
Vietnam(This Perios will be Divide as North "Trinh" and South "Nguyen")
Champa
Cambodia
Burma
Hanthawady Kingdom
Laos
Malacca
Acheh
Mongol Khanate
Majapahit

India:
Mughal
Delhi Sultanate
Vijayanagara
Mysore
Ceylon
Nepal
Persia(Timurid or Safavid)

European Nation:
Holland
Portugal
France
Spain
England