Next Totalwar Is...

[Stormer]

Well aparantley in some magazines and vids i seen, CA plan on making a next totalwar but they are still debating the Napolionic era, American History, or maybe a Medieval 2, they say they havent made their minds up yet but we all know they have as they decided on RTW before Medieval was even made, i dont cant see how any of the gunpowder era games are gonna work in this engine. also that other game IMPERIAL GLORY is being realsed soon.

Me thinks we should all get our Shogun or Medieval 2 Demands in

[Beelzebub]

MTW2 would ROCK. I think the medieval setting is the best for TW games since you've got such a wide variety of cool units and cultures. If they really wanted to be ambitious they could increase the scale of the conflict from europe/middle east to everything between europe and japan. But I'd be more than ok with just the same area as MTW redone with all the new engine improvements.

[Red Harvest]

I don't see why they couldn't alter the engine to make it work properly for gun based warfare. Map size would need to be huge.

[fester]

I agree the medieval period is the best setting for a TW game . The technical advances for example runs from iron mail armour right trough to full plate steal then there's the introdction of the crossbow and its development into a long range armour weapon. fortifacations start as mere earth works and timber baracades to massive stone fortresess and the development of siege engines used to breach them with the eventual introduction of gun powder.All this set on the back ground of the medieval power struggle wich resulted in hundreds of years of warfare. I cant think of a period more suited to a TW game .

[Basileus]

I say they make Shogun 2 and Medieval 2 with rpg elements that would make me happy heh

[ShellShock]

CA in the Gamespot interviews talk about always developing two games, one an evolution and the other a revolution. So MTW was a evolution of STW, whilst RTW is a revolution - by this I think they mean the revolution was going from 2D to 3D for battles, and the tight integration of the strategic campaign map with the tactical battle maps.

An evolution of RTW may be STW 2 or MTW 2 with the new engine. Or possibly some other era, but still using the same engine. After all they have invested a lot in the engine, and it has light years of mileage in it, as can be seen already with all the TV spin offs.

But what would be the revolution from RTW? They've already done the 3D thing, and I don't think just improving the graphics will cut the mustard - we can take it as read that future games will always have better graphics.

What about improving the strategy elements? There is more scope for revolutionary changes here, but we need to see first how much RTW has already achieved, and what scope remains for future developments.

I think the obvious candidate, and the one big area of weakness in Total War games, is multiplayer, and I mean campaign/strategic, and well as battles. Campaign MP is a problem that has yet to be solved, but there is a very large market for massive, immersive MP games. You would be an up and coming general in the Total War universe, pitching your wits against human opponents to conquer the known world.

[son of spam]

Three Kingdoms: Total War!

Hopefully...

I'm kinda hoping CA wouldn't cover the same ground with the next total war. Why play Medieval again (even with better graphics?). With Three Kingdoms they could probably even give the hero system more meaning than just a bunch of high valor/high command guys.

[ShellShock]

Another revolutionary change would be to implement proper sea based battles, rather than the current abstraction.

Again, like the campaign multi-player, this could be applied to many different eras. How about New World: Total War, set in the age of European expansion and colonisation of America, Africa, and Australasia. A lot of the decisive battles occurred at sea, which would be ideal for a new engine. If you have read any of the Patrick O'Brian books - or seen the film Master and Commander, you will know what I mean.

[Psyco]

I'm going for Napoleonic: Total War.
We already have Medieval, so I really don't think we need another one (how different could it be?). Shogun 2 would be better, simply because Shogun is older than Medieval. The change from Shugun to the next game would be huge. The reason I want N:TW is because it hasn't been done. There has never been a TW game in which the main weapon was the gun. It would be something completely different.
Thats my 2 cents.

[Adrian II]

Campaign MP is a problem that has yet to be solved, but there is a very large market for massive, immersive MP games.

Hear hear. ShellShock, campaign MP will be the next real "revolution", no doubt about it. Make it Napoleonic and you'll draw in a huge mass of new TW enthusiasts. Since logistics played such a large part in Napoleonic battles, the game might include three maps per turn. One campaign map, one intermediate map and one battle scene. The intermediate map would be a sort of close-up campaign map on which players move units around a province or border area in preparation for an upcoming battle. You get a limited amount of time to move your troops into position, then the fighting starts whether you like it or not.

[chinaboy71]

What about improving the strategy elements? There is more scope for revolutionary changes here, but we need to see first how much RTW has already achieved, and what scope remains for future developments.

I think the obvious candidate, and the one big area of weakness in Total War games, is multiplayer, and I mean campaign/strategic, and well as battles. Campaign MP is a problem that has yet to be solved, but there is a very large market for massive, immersive MP games. You would be an up and coming general in the Total War universe, pitching your wits against human opponents to conquer the known world.[/QUOTE]

I just read this idea. Wow what an amazing game that would make for. It would be like an awesomely improved version of lineage. I think gaming, and I mean the acual types of games are becoming obviously multiplayer. But I think that Lineage is the only game that has gotten to an awesome level. What the TW development team should consider is just a massive multiplayer game. Like Linegae the game is all through out Asia. They have 20,000 people servers or something like that. And the biggest servers in the rest of the world for like...any game i know is 64. Well I hope they dont go into fantasy type games wiht dwarfs and elves, and hope they make it just a huge multiplayer game. Past that, I guess I dont care much what its about. Heck, Ill play anything TW comes out with. Its all good.

[fester]

I cant see how a gun based game would be as fun or as skillful as hand to hand infantry. If your going to have a gun based game you may as well go the hole hogg and have WWII TW........ No thanks.

[Daevyll]

MTW 2 would be my preference.

Another interesting setting would be to decrease the scope of the game, allowing for more detail.

A game about the War of the Roses perhaps, with very detailed dynastic/political aspects.

[Orpheus]

I cant see how a gun based game would be as fun or as skillful as hand to hand infantry. If your going to have a gun based game you may as well go the hole hogg and have WWII TW........ No thanks.

The battle tactics used in the Napoleonic wars would be well-suited to the RTW engine, I think (after some obvious ammendments to unit strategy.) Although they made much use of firearms, the battlefield tatctics are in some ways more akin to medieval strategy than modern warfare. (Advancing in rank, line of battle, etc.) There was also plenty of infantry/cavalry hand-to hand fighting to be done.

A Napoleonic-era game should probably include an American Revolutionary War, in a strategic map expanded west to include North America and maybe east to include the colonial campaigns in India.

[SirGrotius]

100% behind a Napoleonic: Total War.

First, I don't think the argument that Imperial Glory or whatever it's called will lead CA to abandon any Napoleonic aspirations is valid. Many similar games are made contemporaneously, if anything, they'd profit from additional exposure. Think of WWII games or the craze w/ modern day FPS. Also, there were a bunch of very similar RTS games of the Age of Kings mold out in 2000 (EE, Age of Wonders, a bit later RON).

Second, as mentioned previously, they've done the gun thing somewhat in MTW and I loved it. I was the weird dude in MP who elected to have something like six serpentine units in his army. And I won. They'll be able to keep the unit sizes down, and maybe they could focus on captain traits, i.e. each unit's (division?) commander would confer certain bonuses/penalties onto his troops, while a general would do the same but for all. Maybe they could implement a simple logistics system to keep the game fresh and realistic, which system would highlight the importance of communications in the period. (e.g. if one presses the shift key or so, the map will highlight a unit or army's line of communications/supply, and if an enemy "sits" on that line said unit/army will suffer logistical penalties such as reduced movement rate, increased attrition, and lowered loyalty/reliability...deserters?.)

Third, I remember back in the day, maybe for Windows 95, I played a game w/ some amount of joy called Fields of Glory (I think), and it was awesome. You could play many historical battles, and there was nothing like playing as Napoleon and sending in the Guard. Oh no, here comes Blucher!

Yeah, so my vote is w/ Napoleonic: Total War, and come on, it's obvious that this will be the choice. I'd recommend preping oneself for the advent of shock and awe.

[DisruptorX]

Wow, yea, we could have a Napoleonic Total War game that moves at several times the speed of sound, just like RTW, and real life. This new realistic game would, of course, speed up the time it takes for muskets to reload (to appeal to the plebs), and feature the same wonderful movement engine from RTW (when you command a unit to move forward, the front rank moves to the back, and the rest of the unit moves forward in a long line)

Of course, just like in the real time period, cavalry would be unstoppable. Once engaged, they could swirl around like a school of fish, doing 180 degree turns in a split second. Then, at will, they could turn and flee and then charge in again while technically still engaged in combat. You don't even need to break out of melee to charge. Thankfully such a realistic feature has already been introduced in RTW, so we are already more than halfway there.

Oh yeah, also to fully take into account the period, units behind a melee would open fire into their friend's backs and slaughter them. They could go in and make sure that units do this, even if "fire at will" is not turned on, just like in Rome.

Of course, to fully reflect the times, melee would last for a few seconds, and be decided, leaving one side completely dead, and the other pretty much intact. Protracted melee would be too fun to actually include in the game, so the 5 second war as featured in RTW would have to do. Okay, I can't type any more without going into a rant. As far as I'm concerned, CA should just stop making TW games entirely, unless they go in from scratch and completely rework the rome engine from the ground up. Everything about it is flawed, and I don't want to see it used again, ever. Maybe after a year of patches, Rome will be a functional game.

[Botis]

I'd personally prefer to see a setting not long after MTW finishes - 1500's -> 1700's so could encompass Spanish hegemony & Dutch revolts 30 years war through to Battle of Blenheim. It's an interesting period - ever changing alliances rise & decline of Turkey & Spain, Rise of France & English as dominant powers blah blah blah. In my humble opinion it is too cool a period not to sim with TW next. Notwithstanding that, I played the old Microprose game Fields of Glory to death when it came out & later the Firaxis Nap's sim & would salivate copiously at the prospect of any Nap's based Horse and Musket Total War!

But what I'd like to see CA do more than anything else is a Multiplayer campaign... ACW would be good for that - like that old Steve Green (??) game The Civil War which was pretty good fun MP for 1990something.

[Beelzebub]

A 1453-1815 era game would be a good guess for their revolution game. Even up until 1815 cavalry still were significant for those who like their fighting to be more up close and personal (just ask the scot greys at waterloo), as were bayonet charges and the like.

I don't see why people are so opposed to MTW2, especially if it covered a larger area. It would be a far different game from MTW1 with the rome engine, heavy cavalry could really make much more impressive charges as they should've, castles would be as imposing as they truely were during the period (RTW's walled cities make MTW fortresses look like sandcastles). Then you have the whole new and improved strategic map to really make that part more interesting.

[Spino]

The rumors that the next TW game will indeed be Medieval '2' have made a huge impression on me. I was originally hoping that modders would transform RTW into 'Medieval 3D' but if there is any truth to this rumor then I won't have to hope and modders won't have to bother!

Although remaking Medieval right after Rome sounds strange, by the time the remake actually hits the shelves it will be sometime in late 2006/early 2007, more than 4 years after the original was released. Four years is a rather long time as far as PC gaming is concerned and the original Medieval will definitely be yesterday's news by then. Furthermore the Dark Ages/Medieval period is so damn popular I think strategy gamers and the TW community will be delighted to see CA take this route. The RTW system is so far ahead of previous TW games that Medieval '2' would seem like an entirely different beast from the original.

If CA doesn't remake Medieval than I'd definitely like to see them cover the Three Kingdoms period in China or turn back the clock even further and cover the struggles between the Hittites, Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, etc.

It is definitely looking like CA's next 'revolutionary' title will feature warfare in the early gunpowder age. I'm hoping they cover the period from the 30 years war, War of the Spanish Succession, etc... all the way to the Napoleonic wars. But I'd really like to see them cover a smaller time frame, maybe from the time of Frederick the Great to sometime after the Napoleonic Wars, so we can have monthly turns instead of bi-annual or annual turns like we do now.

[Steppe Merc]

Why play Medieval again (even with better graphics?).

Dude, I'd buy it... that and STW 2. I'll buy any thing as long as it's not a gun based one. I hate guns.

[biguth dickuth]

I'd go for a MTW2 but with an earlier starting date and a world map.
The changes, however, i'm mostly interested in have to do with gameplay. I'd like to see the following:

- A real-time 3d map without "end turns" which reflects the constant changes as time passes.

- No provinces, just towns and cities and areas of influence around them.

- Several kinds of economical and political systems and the ability of the player to shift between them in the long-term.

- Different kinds of social organisation in different societies and different ways of troop recruitment for each faction, according to the faction's economical and political system.

- Even larger and more imposing 3d battles with more realistic fighting animations and a multitude of skins per unit (no more "attack of the clones"!).

- Naval battles.

I'm sure i have more to add in that list but can't think of it at the moment. Please tell me what you think.

[mambaman]

why not go for Ancient Total war and a period around Alexander the Great or even before??

[ICantSpellDawg]

why not go for Ancient Total war and a period around Alexander the Great or even before??

that will probably be the expansion

east asia will be the evolutionary

napoleonic will be the revolutionary



thats my verdict - it sounds like it would make sense

[Steppe Merc]

I think there should be two expansions: One for the 'Barbarian Migrations' with the Huns and the Goths, the Other around Alexander.

[Armchair Athlete]

I think it will be MTW 2, with a later finishing date maybe. I think this would be the one they do because due to the later finishing date, gunpowder units will be used much more, and they can use feedback from players to gauge whether a predominately gunpowder game would be successful (eg NTW). Gunpowder and primarily ranged units are something that CA have never done, so it may be a bit risky to jump straight into it.

[Quietus]

Pyros has already beaten CA to the punch with Imperial Glory. Besides, this engine is no good when it comes to guns. And it has no 3D naval battle either.

Current Engine:
Thus, the good candidates are MTW 2 or Ancient China TW. Representation of the Medieval Age in MTW was poorly done. It is then logical to right what was awful. Add some good production value here and there to get the real medieval flavor (I'm not asking for an implementation of the feudal system here ). IMHO, Shogun was tastefully done and there's no need yet to remake this one.

Next Generation:
For the next generation of TW they should improve upon the hack-and-slash, pin-and-flank style since it is getting quite old. (IG already utilizes buildings, trees, etc for tactics).

Add some Naval Battles there. They are already behind on this one too (IG).

Twenty units is still not nearly enough!!! (Right, right??? )

Much larger battle maps so reinforcements will no longer be as necessary ( So you can make large flanking maneuver; Heck even divide your large army into 5 pieces for a truly coordinated offensive).

As for the socio-political-economic-military system. I'll wait for he verdict in RTW first. See if there is a balance there.

I'm pretty sure everyone has their own ideas on how to improve the next gen. TW.

[ShellShock]

I'd like to see the following:

- A real-time 3d map without "end turns" which reflects the constant changes as time passes.

Ugh no - this would make TotalWar into an RTS, which is probably anathema to most people here. I personally need time to think whilst I'm planning my next move (and I don't want to have to keep pressing pause).

- No provinces, just towns and cities and areas of influence around them.

As per RTW.

- Several kinds of economical and political systems and the ability of the player to shift between them in the long-term.

- Different kinds of social organisation in different societies and different ways of troop recruitment for each faction, according to the faction's economical and political system.

These will add more depth to the game, but may make it too complicated for the average player - some reviews have already complained that RTW is too complicated.

- Even larger and more imposing 3d battles with more realistic fighting animations and a multitude of skins per unit (no more "attack of the clones"!).

This will surely happen, as the power of graphic cards keeps increasing.

- Naval battles.

This gets my vote; it is a major area of gameplay where CA have yet to make their mark.

[ShellShock]

A good reason why CA may not do Napoleaonic era next is the forthcoming release of Imperial Glory from Pyro, which looks very much like what would happen if you ported the RTW engine to Napoleonic times, and added in 3D sea battles.

However, if Imperial Glory is a lemon, then there will still be room for CA - but will they want to tread in someone else's footsteps, rather than lead the field?

From where I'm sitting, it looks like CA's options are limited. It is difficult to see how they can repeat the success of RTW, with an era that has equal mass market appeal and has not already been done. I think MTW 2 looks more likely as a result - at least CA already own this space, they know it in depth, and there is the existing MTW market plus new comers from RTW.

[Colovion]

Yeah MTW 2 would be sweet.

The Creative Assembly and Ensemble Studios tend to be having the same problems - they run out of Historical Periods to make games out of...

[Longasc]

I would say Medieval 2.

Napoleonic Era: Problematic -> Gunpowder units were the worst part of MTW (IMO). They would fight on new terrain with the introduction of gunpowder, while

MTW 2 -> familiar ground, plus the experiences of RTW with the new 3D engine.

Good chance that this game would not only feature one of the imo most interesting periods, but also improved gameplay free of major bugs and the gripes of a completely new game / system.