TW4 what do you want?

[Michael the Brave]

It looks like CA started to include supply and logistics but gave up on it mid-development.

Where do you know that from ??

[Monarch]

Very interesting ideas. LOTR one wouldnt work because well with Battle for Middle Earth II coming out and stuff they'd be too similiar and CA wouldnt get the rights.

Now onto the WW1/WW2. Its interestingly my favourite period of history, the one I like studying the most and the one I know most about. Interesting then I would not like it to be in a total war game. World War 1 because what would it be? Early mobalizing of 1914, then the race to the sea to outflank, then what? Nothing, deadlock. You'd have to be amazing to break a line, there was no movement in the first world war, itd be terrible as a game. World War 2 because it'd be too different from previous titles, it'd be a huge overhall and also such a short time period, perhaps 20th Century: Total War where they could stick in a couple of civil wars, world wars, falklands, gulf etc but bleh...

Colonial: TW could work. It could be like AOE3 (though of course being TW itd be loads better) in that the americas are involved, but they could go further in including Africa, Carribean etc.

China is very interesting. I know very little about the subject which in sometimes makes it more fun, you get to learn loads and have fun Arthurian seems cool but errr, again please do correct me as my knowledge lacks in that time period but wasnt it all wandering tribes and stuff? You wouldnt get to play as somebody you half recognise imo.

A fantasy game - bleh, liking history as i do the great fun part of strategy games is just that, the history. I dont know I'd probably still buy it but not preorder you know?

[Michael the Brave]

Very interesting ideas. LOTR one wouldnt work because well with Battle for Middle Earth II coming out and stuff they'd be too similiar and CA wouldnt get the rights.

Now onto the WW1/WW2. Its interestingly my favourite period of history, the one I like studying the most and the one I know most about. Interesting then I would not like it to be in a total war game. World War 1 because what would it be? Early mobalizing of 1914, then the race to the sea to outflank, then what? Nothing, deadlock. You'd have to be amazing to break a line, there was no movement in the first world war, itd be terrible as a game. World War 2 because it'd be too different from previous titles, it'd be a huge overhall and also such a short time period, perhaps 20th Century: Total War where they could stick in a couple of civil wars, world wars, falklands, gulf etc but bleh...

Colonial: TW could work. It could be like AOE3 (though of course being TW itd be loads better) in that the americas are involved, but they could go further in including Africa, Carribean etc.

China is very interesting. I know very little about the subject which in sometimes makes it more fun, you get to learn loads and have fun Arthurian seems cool but errr, again please do correct me as my knowledge lacks in that time period but wasnt it all wandering tribes and stuff? You wouldnt get to play as somebody you half recognise imo.

A fantasy game - bleh, liking history as i do the great fun part of strategy games is just that, the history. I dont know I'd probably still buy it but not preorder you know?

I think that the possibilities you have enumerated just show that the best option for the next totalwar game is a remake of MTW/STW..in fact I remember reading somewhere TW4 will be a remake of MTW...anyone heard CA stating that ?

[Ludens]

I think that the possibilities you have enumerated just show that the best option for the next totalwar game is a remake of MTW/STW..in fact I remember reading somewhere TW4 will be a remake of MTW...anyone heard CA stating that ?

I can't recall anything, except that when Time Commanders announced that they would launch a new series with battles including Stamford Bridge and Hastings several members speculated that TW4 would be in the Medieval era again. But if CA would confirm this it would be over the forum in no time, so I think it never happened.

[Mangudai]

Where do you know that from ??

export_desc_units

[Mangudai]

I like wargames set between 1600-1900. However I don't think the Total War engine is suitable for it. I've tried battles with nothing but arquibusiers and cannons using MTW, its fun for a few battles then it gets lame (way better that trying this with AoE though). Terrain on the tactical map would have to change considerably, and there are issues with scale, etc. Forget about WWII total war, that's just nuts. Pre-gunpowder for me please.

[Monarch]

I think that the possibilities you have enumerated just show that the best option for the next totalwar game is a remake of MTW/STW..in fact I remember reading somewhere TW4 will be a remake of MTW...anyone heard CA stating that ?

Apologies for not being clear, I myself just didnt really have a clear mindset about what I would want the next TW to be, so instead I decided to evaluate others ideas. I in fact out of suggestions such as Colonial, Arthurian, Remakes of previous games, and China would go for China, in my opinion it suits the engine the best and lends itself better than say Arthurian for a game.

[matteus the inbred]

Wheel of Time Total War! it'll never make a film (too big), but plenty of scope for conquest and reunification stuff. for the very good point about fantasy not having the same history and depth, Robert Jordan has included enough (too much?!) background for this not to be problem, if people are prepared to read a bit. i might have done a history degree but i still discover new stuff every day cos of these forums.

bagsy the Aiel, and apologies for people who've no idea what i'm talking about. check out www.dragonmount.com if you want.

[Monarch]

I think that making a wheel of time one would cut their audience dramatically, alot of people buy it because its historical and such. Now if they were to perhaps loan/sell whatever the engine to some people to make a WoT then fine, but please make a historical one. An example of this is how Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds was built on the AoE2 engine.

I personally wouldn't buy a WoT Total War, I've not read the books, dont know anything about them, I mean what sort of tech are we talking LOTR type stuff? Well anywho, just my humble opinion.

[adembroski]

Medieval: Total War with the Templars as a playable faction.

With further thought, that wouldn't really work. I just thought of something though, someone mentioned mmorpg: total war... how would that work? You play a single knight and work your way up to king or something?

[matteus the inbred]

WOT TW would be mid-medieval type tech, gunpowder is just around the corner though...i think the problem with WOT would be whether or not to include people channelling the power (basically, magicians) and to what extent they could do stuff. it would be silly to have that in, as it's got no place in TW, but it wouldn't really be proper WOT if you left it out.
MTW 'start as a humble squire and work your way up to warlord' sounds like a damn good idea though!

[Sociopsychoactive]

GAH!

I just finished reading the other, older, 'whats the next TW game' thread, only to find this one is the one I was after, and I really don't have the time or patience to read all the replies on here, so forgive me if this isn;t a new idea.

First off, people are thinking too small. If sid mier could do it years and years ago 9admitedly in a very clunky way) then why can't CA do it now, in a much better and more in depth way? Yes, I'm talking about..

Civilisation :Total War

Have the entire world as your playing field, with the time period starting as the late bronze age, and going right on into the early gunpowder age, maybe even with turns meing longer during the first part of the game and shorted toward the end (just like Civilisation did, although it did it badly).

if you start off with the right factions in the rightr places (and I know were talking hundreds of factions, but it's possible, although difficult) then the historical accuracy nuts will be happy.

Anyway, I know thats not going to happen untill at least TW5, but I thought I'd say it. Now for what I realisticly want.

Supply lines, yes, definately need to be included, they were very much missing from RTW. if your army has no supply train then they are demoralised, cannot recieve re-enforcements and cannot report back to home, there is no such thing as the radio after all. Doesn;t it mean that you could easily have a general and an entire army go rebel, or swap sides or whatever, if their suplies and communications have been cut off, and the home faction be totally unaware of it? Wouldn;t that add a new element to the game?

Naval battles are a must, they have been missing from every TW game so far, and i want so dearly to control my ships in person, sending an armada of galleys toward the enemy and watching their little fleet of fishing ships turn tail and run away. Yes, it;s difficult to do as it's not been incorperated into any TW engine yet, but it would be worth it.

Mp Campaigns. Hell, we have been playing PBEM MP campaigns since shogun, merely because the game lacks an easier way of doing it, so this HAS to be included in the next game. If it were I'd plasy multiplayer a whole load more, as it is with just battles it barely interest me, my style of fighting generally revolves around 'keep as many men alive as possible' rather than 'kill the enemy no matter the cost' and MP is all geared toward the latter.


As to what it will be, well....

I don'twant NTW, I don't like gunpowder units. The is one main difference between napolionic warfare and the warfare of MTW and RTW. Napolion, and most other commanders of the time, handed muskets to rookies, and for the first shot of combat there was little difference between them and veterens. Yes, the generals veterency makes a big difference, but with muskets and rifles there is little skill, at least not in the first shot.

The same was said by the christian church about the crossbow, and indeed they tried to ban it more than once for the simple fact that a peasant could kill a king with it, and there was no honour involved. Gunpowder weapons are just as bad, a squad of fresh recruits with muskets could kill a heavy cavalry unit, whereas hand to hand they would have been slaughtered. Yes, hand to hand was still a major part of warfare, bayonett charges, cavalry and the like were still major players I know, but you can't ignore the impact gunpowder weapons would have.

I also, for some of the same reasons, don't want to see Amercia: Total war, but I admit it would be a good setting. Start it from the first landing of the europeans (although whether the vikings where still around then I don't know) and have it climax with the result of the civil war. Make as many factions playable as possible, and cover both north and south amreica. Peronsally I'd have great fun fighting off the conquistadors as the aztec empire, sacrificing hundreds of thousands of them to their gods. This would hopefully allow people to play the old hack and slash style verses muskets and cavalry, and then after a while gunpowder weapons and horses would become widespread enough that all factions use them.

Don't make it in any way like 'american conquest' (I hate that game with a passion), make it a TW game with both options available, and don;t forget that the europeans didn't ONLY use gunpowder and cavarly, the bow and the spear where still used, just far less than in the medieval period, and who says we can't change that ourselves by playing that way?

So, with those two at the bottom of my list I'm drawn to another, Fantasy: Total war. Ofr all you warcraft fans it would be a great game, pitched battles with orcs and the like against elves, dwarves and humans. Don't call it middle earth (if nothing else they would have to spend every penny just on the license) but fantasy :Total war would work in the same style as MTW and RTW, just with magic instead of science, and orcs instead of peasants.

Then again, my ideal would still be MTW2 (though whatever you do CA, don't call it that). Expand the map to include as much as you can, like japan, china and the like, incorperate things from rome like the city provinces and freedom of movement, plus the battlemap-squares rather than provinces. Yes, it may seem a bit of a cop-out, but I'm positive 90% of MTW fans would buy it, and most RTW players would go for it, so there is a market. There is so much potential in that time period that hasn't been tapped yet, and it remains a favourite among all sorts of games from RTS's to castle-sims to Total war. Bring on MTW2!

But then again, there is another option. Yes, this is stretching a bit, but what about world: Total war. World war one was a mess, everyone fought and thousands died every day, make it so the battlemap is you climbing from the trenches to advance, getting gunned down all the way, and the campaign map see's you trying to shore up a struggling empire against more enemies than you knew existed. Yes, tanks and guns are less fun than bows and swords, but WW1 hasn;t been done to death like WW2 has, and how many of us would like to go back and fight the battles again, OUR way, rather than field-marshal Haig's way of slaughtering troops all over the place. It would be hard, it would take years to develop, and it would be risky, but i think it could work.

I had more, but this is long enough already.

[TenkiWarPRIEST]

Seems like Romance of the Three Kingdoms on the original Nintendo had more elaborate diplomacy interaction. No version since STW has had the same game immersion. STW2 , or as mentioned the Seven Kingdom period would be great.

[RemusAvenged]

I'd like to see the older MTW made with the RTW engine where you could utilize the cities. And id like to see more difinitive things on the 2D map larger areas for the actual battles where using area's with more trees would be possible. I'd like to see the batttles be more dynamic where cities burned and troops were affected by this, Id like to see traps in the fields or in the cities as you entered traps within a city,, I'd like to see moats with Crocs!! and Id like to see the ability to burn a field by creating traps within it as well. These items and things may need conditional factors for them to be employed correctly but they sure would be nice

Having barriers set up in a city would be awesome. Sieges are way too easy. Why not allow for the blocking of streets to slow an enemy, or the hiding of units in buildings or even a special 'city mob' set of units that appear for the defender? Maybe even allowing unlimited arrows for the defender.

And how sweet would it be to have stakes or pit traps to slow down enemy cavalry from charging in and dominating?

Sorry that's off topic and old but Breeze is onto something.
Um, African Total War! Come on Zulus rock, Nubians are cool, Masai Tribemen would sweep up and pygmies...

[RemusAvenged]

Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time would be a really rich source of units and Geography. But the non human Trollocs and Myrrdals might be tough to do justice to. Aiel desert warriors, Seanchan oriental style units with fantastic lizard and Battle Cat mounts, strong defensive crossbow units, horse me up the wazoo, darkfriend mob units, Malkeri Knights, Two Rivers bowman and of course: Far Dareis Mai. Santa likey

But I think it would need a magic element. Some unit that could cast simple fireballs or earth rending.. Maybe something along the lines of the Heroes from Warcraft?

[RemusAvenged]

OK last post on this. Not that I normally like gun powder, but the Alternate History books series by Harry Turtledove would be great.

An America split after the South wins independence due to a UK-France enforced end to the Civil War. Here the USA is not on good terms with Canada and is surrounded by enemies.

This leads to an All-American coldwar-stalemate that ensues where the USA sides with Germany and has a big Socialist party, since Lincoln would have been despised for losing. The CSA (Confederates) still carry slavery upto the 1890's and they have strong allies in the UK and France. Things come to a boil again as they move into Mexico (Manifest Southern Destiny) and Cuba in the 1880's. And this starts a Second American Civil War by a still stronger but isolated North.

Not that I agree with the South's right to the "War of Northern Aggression", but IMHO the premise would be a good change up.

[Laman]

Songhai TW!
Play as Songhai, Mali, Hausa, Oyo, Benin, Mossi or others. Would be a lot of fun. And for expansion (if needed) CA could have Moroccan Invasion.

[King Noob the Stupid]

I think colonization TW would be great, it could begin around 1492 and end in the 18th century, there would be Europe, America and Africa on the map (perhaps Asia too) and you could play as one of the european powers trying to bring christianity to the natives and gold to their homelands while fighting the natives and the other europeans, or you could play native peoples trying to save their lifes and their culture/religion, addon could be for example african pre-colonization kingdoms or mayas/aztecs/incas or something like that.

[Alim]

I'd personally like to see the return to the medieval period in the next game, great as MTW is, there is still so much that can be improved (diplomacy, naval battles and so on). Perhaps instead of focusing on Europe this title could be mostly about the warfare in Asia (Arabia, Persia, China, India and of course the Mongols). I think this could be fun.

[Duke John]

http://forums.eidosgames.com/showpos...4&postcount=42

is it true those guys can make the skeletons for the models mount and dismount the horses?

Its possible they have , but they application you mentioned is possible in deed , one thing RTW prides it self on is its ability to be moded , we feel that the only way to truly gain the insights and intrests of the consumer is letting there imagination run wild , in fact the next installment of the Total War Series was going to be centered around The Greek and Persian Empires , prior to the dates of RTW , however , do to the apparent intrests by numerous groups and mods that have been made , that project has been pushed back , and currently European Total War is slated to be realesed late next year. And I assure you , you will not be Dissapointed.

Either a poster acting like he has got inside information or a CA employee.

[RemusAvenged]

Maybe Legends will be a Forgotten Realms Legends scenario.

DARK ELF Armies would have some of the most amazing units I'm sure.

[Microwavegerbil]

Seems like Romance of the Three Kingdoms on the original Nintendo had more elaborate diplomacy interaction. No version since STW has had the same game immersion. STW2 , or as mentioned the Seven Kingdom period would be great.

Not to get too off topic, but exactly how can you say that neither game since STW has the same immersion. Especially since you mention the diplomacy, which has only gotten better through each iteration of the game?

Anyway, I'm not expecting the map to move too far off from it's current position from the last two games. The game's main audience is just more familiar with Europe, and European based games will just sell better than one based somewhere else.

Personally, I'd love to see one set across Alexander the Great' Empire just after his death, that could have some potential.

[[GG]vonDöbeln]

Definitely Napoleonic (or at least 15th-19th century)!!! That would give us Lordz something real to work with. ;)

Lord von Döbeln

[Vladimir]

My vote is for something set in China say in the time period of the movie Hero. They did a game on the unification of Japan why not China?