Next Totalwar Is...

[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.

[lars573]

I'm for a Napoleonic total war as well. Intsead of shogun 2 I'd prefer an asian total war set from persia in the west to japan in the east from the begining of the sung dynasty till the fall of the ming, that would work great. Personally Medieval 2 is the last thing I hope they make, a rehash of medieval with rome's engine would just be a worthless cop out IMO.

[ICantSpellDawg]

I'm for a Napoleonic total war as well. Intsead of shogun 2 I'd prefer an asian total war set from persia in the west to japan in the east from the begining of the sung dynasty till the fall of the ming, that would work great. Personally Medieval 2 is the last thing I hope they make, a rehash of medieval with rome's engine would just be a worthless cop out IMO.

that would be unbelievably massive in scope and would not capture the interests of enough buyers - however interesting it is


a 3 kingdoms or dynastic china-Japan game is a possibility with maybe a eurasian steppe/South asia mod or something


but my bet is on napoleonic TW next - or at least it will be the Revolution game

[Colovion]

It's tough for game companies to find something which people will like after breaking ground with new ideas - now they've covered most of the time periods so they'll have ot pull something really good out of their hats this time.

[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.