WWII Total War?

[Aulus Paulinus]

Hello!

The Total War series is going to be richer in slightly less then a year. I'm sure we all hope that's not the last one and that we will keep getting new games every couple of years. Here's a wild idea, do you think that one of the future sequels might be World War II: Total War? Might seem weird since that part of history is quite diferent but I think it has a great potential. Of course, turns couldn't be 6 months long but rather about a week. Battle maps would have to be much larger to accomodate for artillery and armour movement but I see it working. We might have Panzer General and Close Combat all in one game.

Write what you think, If you have suggestions I would like to hear them.

Aulus Paulinus

[Franconicus]

Yes and no!
I think thatthe total war series is to much taylored and focused to that spear beats horse-horse beats sword-sword beats spear thing. So they will be limited to create scenarios from stone age (at least after horses were used!) to the time where guns played a minor role and can be simulated as modified bows. Planes do not fit into this pattern.

I think another company will do it. They will create a new concept which includes the means of modern warfare. WW2 is far too popular and lot of people would buy it.

Maybe our modding factions should sit together with our history high flyers and found a corporation to build a WW2 simulation. Could make a lot of money. But they would have to make it inaccurate and full of bugs. Wonder if they can make it!

[econ21]

I'm not sure it would work. As we get closer in time to the present day, I find historical accuracy becomes so much more important as we know so much more about what happened. The great thing about TW for me, is that I can suspend disbelief and take it as a pretty good simulation of historical conflict. I doubt I could do that for WW2:TW.

For example, at the tactical level: We can debate how effective cavalry were against spears until the cows come home, because it seems very hard to get the historical evidence to settle the questions. But when it comes to WW2 combat, there are gamers who know at what distance a Panther's gun will penetrate a T-34 and how that varies with the precise point of impact etc.

And at the strategic level, it would be rather hard to swallow a game that allowed Japan to invade the US in 1943 or Mussolini's Italy to dominate the Med.

Indeed, discrete "battles" in the TW sense don't really seem to make much sense in historical terms after 1913 (arguably before) so the whole TW concept of combining turn-based campaigns from real time battles seems inappropriate.

[jimmy]

especially with games like sudden strike,blitzkreig. then theres close combat.then games like call of duty.if the game was modeled on call of duty then yes it may work. but things like kursk ardennes normandy ?? i dont think it would especially as the number of units needed to replicate it would be huge. in my opinion it would be a step backward as there are still loads of topics in ancient history not yet done.

as an example you could for the puritians like myself base a game entirely on the mongol alexander the great campaigns you could recreate homers troy. ancient china, unification of the mongol tribes,the crusades the rise of islamic armies babars saladin etc .timur the lame the lists are endless but it may not sell as many games and thats what it boils down too. the thing is stick to something your good at which to me is ancient medieval history for the totalwar series.imagine trying to recreate the battle of stalingrad etc.plus your going up against established WW2 rts producers of these games.it all depends on the customer and the max number of games shifted who is the target audience.

[cannon_fodder]

Thinking about the implications, benefits, and problems of a TW game set in (relatively) modern times is quite fun.

First point I'll make is about the actual amount of men involved in a battle. In RTW, a single unit has at the most about 240 men. This is the rough equivalent to a modern-day company. The player cannot engage more than 20 of these units in a single battle. This means about 5 battalions, which is about 1-2 brigades. All of these units are smaller than a division, hundreds of which were fielded during WWII.

So, clearly, the amount of men in a unit that the player individually commands would have to be raised. A small point, the units of <240 men are the smallest the player can move as a consistent body- just as a battalion is the smallest unit that can set up an HQ and act without higher orders. The player commanding individual battalions would be most suiting. Anyway, the implications of larger player-commanded units would be

1. Much, MUCH larger maps. Especially in conjunction with the longer-ranged weapons of the day that Aulus Paulinus mentioned.
2. Longer battles. A couple divisions could fight it out for several weeks.

It would most likely be necessary to have far greater abstraction, as there would be almost no decisive, half-hour battles fought between a few divisions. Of course, things would probably be scaled down a bit, as they have been in previous TW games. In STW, the largest unit is of 120 men, and the player can field (if I remember right) 14 units. An army of about 1700 men would've been incredibly small at the time in Japan, and that's the largest the player could field!

One possiblity for abstraction would be skirmishing that occurs between turns, between opposed divisions that are near to each other. When one tried to make a decisive push, there would be a realtime battle.

One fundamental problem with a modern TW game is the actual wars themselves. Previous TW games took place in times of general lawlessness (when looked at at an international level, of course). This lawlessness was suiting for a game with a basic theme of domination. However, a WWII game would basically involve 2 huge opposing forces, and a handful of neutral ones. Not much really interesting that can happen there.

There are such problems even with a more generally modern TW game, one being the existence of the U.N. With this organization in place, a nation attempting to use its military might to overwhelm others and conquer them would be stopped immediately. This may be more of a benefit, though- more focus would be put on the economic and political aspects of the game. The goal(s) would have to be something other than territorial conquest.

It's pretty clear that as far as the game's engine is concerned, CA would be looking at a complete rewrite. Not the update that MTW2's obviously is. And all the modelling and texturing required would definitely put all their previous games to shame. It would be a mammoth task- but I hope they undertake it one day!

[marcusbrutus]

Just started playing Total War again after a long lay off but... I agree with everyone who says that the Total War engine is just not suited to modern warfare - bullets, artillery, trains, planes and automobiles are just not gonna work too well.

[Leonin Khan]

i think a WWII game should be real time then a bit like Roma Victor. you are part of an army you get orders you eat and sleep there and you advance. no turn based just real time. when you sleep the screen turns black for a few secs and you wake up again. the tention (sp? must be on every second and you can for once really fight through europe. you can choose factions and players. like

infantry
demolition man
tank commander etc

you can be russian, german, italian english american japanese etc it would have high replayability rate and such but i think it will take some time to create and i doubt it will ever come when im young :S

[Aulus Paulinus]

Thank you for your comment guys!

When I started this topic I seem to have overlooked a major issue - target audience. I guess I'm a strange kind of a history fan, my two favourite periods are Romans and WWII. I suppose most TW players prefer ancient and medieval period. And it may be true that current engine isn't suited for anything modern (say 20th century) but I meant that the basic principal should be used, not just making diferent skins for this one

The key word as cannon_fodder said would have to be abstraction. Every strategic game is full of it. RTW has many abstract elements. The battles are scaled down and accellerated simulations of real battles. You can have an army of say 1500-1700 people and fight an enemy army of similar size. Eventually you can have another AI controlled army of similar size (in such situations on my system the game becomes a slide show). So, altogether you can have about 5000 men maximum in one battle. Historical battles were fought with lot more than that and lasted for hours and hours. In RTW even such large battles usualy last about 10 minutes. If there's trouble on the left flank your cavalry from the right flank can arrive in a matter of seconds and solve the problem. That was impossible in reality. Not to mention the fact that any unit instantly responds to your command. Ancient commanders had no such luxury, their units had to be preissued commands on how to behave under what conditions. Alternatively they could send runners to element commanders.

Another example is strategic map movement. A unit needs one move (i.e. six months) to get from one town to another. Most turtles would get there quicker

A WWII game doesn't have to simulate the exact number of tanks, men and infantry. As far as I can tell none of them do. The Close Combat series simulated most great WWII battles with 'the tip of the spear' principle. You commanded batallion size units which happend to be where most of the action was. If the battle was not resolved, both sides could agree to ceasfire and the battle would continue another day. Something similar could be employed here. Airplanes could either be attached to army units and then called on demand (close support planes such as JU-87). Strategic and air superiority planes could be treated like navy units in RTW.

Simon Appleton said it would be hard to swallow for example Italy dominate the Med. Why's that? After all, when the game starts it doesn't have to follow the real history line at all. In my Scipii campaign there was just one Punic war. And Julius Ceasar didn't conquer the Gaul in 1st century BC, I did it in 3rd century. In my Western Roman Empire BI campaign I destroyed all the barbarian hordes and captured Consantinople. Currently I'm playing Seleucid campaign where I restored Alexander's empire (at least parts that are on the map). None of that things really happened. In WWII simulation you could have for example Germans making a deal with Soviets instead of attacking them. Together they could have defeated Western powers, who knows. The diplomatic and alliance element should also be made more complex.

Since I don't want to turn this post into a full scale novel I quit for now. Salute to everyone who joined the discussion!

Aulus Paulinus

[cannon_fodder]

^ You just said most of what I was going to. Oh, and about target audience, I generally find modern war more interesting than ancient or medieval. I'm sure quite a few TW players feel the same.

Anyway, another point about a modern TW game is AI. Clearly, a unit such as a company does not move in unison, retaining the exact same spacing and order. The units in the TW games, due to the time period, do. It seems much greater A.I. for smaller groups of soldiers would be necessary. After all, a mass (think peasents in RTW) shooting at a mass wouldn't be very realistic. A.I. code would be much more complex, as well as being applied to smaller units, creating quite a strain on one's hardware. Note that (I'm fairly certain about this) A.I. causes more slowdown on RTW than anything else.

Which brings to mind another benefit. The TW players (including myself) who think that fights are resolved too quickly in RTW would be pleased. A fight between 2 companies firing at each other over a medium range could last quite a while. Especially given that it's likely that both would eventually fall back, and fresh meat would be brought up...

[jimmy]

and i am in to WW2 ancient medieval history. but these games like close combat/ or sudden strike or call of duty.the thing is they are already here.in fact there is a cracking tank sim [war in the balkans i think it is called].i also like IL,2 .and in my opinion there is still loads to do regarding ancient/medieval period anyway.

[phred]

check out this from the Arena

It looks like there's a game in the works (but not by the Creative Assembly)

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=53121

If you go to the website and look at the screenshots and then scroll down to the screenshot archive, you'll see shots of the strategy map.
It hasn't been updated in a long time - Gamespot has a release date of 2007.

[Monarch]

But would it be total war? I agree with much of what others had said, let's keep it to swords and shields, or at least early gunpowder.

[cannon_fodder]

I don't see why there should be any limitation to the eras a TW game can take place in.

[Aulus Paulinus]

Thanks Phred for the info, I wasn't aware of this game. From what I can see on the web page it seems that the authors were inspired by the Total War series. And it certainly shows potential. Let's just hope that they make it at least nearly as good as the RTW. One thing that worries me a bit is that last update happened about a year and a half ago. Wonder if there's any progress going on with that?

AP

[Samurai Waki]

The sheer logistical magnitude to make modern wars realistic is mind boggling. Instead of one single battlefield you have several sectors along a single or more front, with battles that could be happening at the same time, or at different times, depending on weather, supplies, and how well your units are maintained. I just don't think its possible.

[phred]

@ Aulus Paulinus

You're welcome

@ Wakizashi
I think you're right. In order for the game to be playable on both the strategic and tactical level you'd have to simplify everything and reduce the scale considerably which would detract from the realism. WWII is probably best played in either a grand strategy game with abstracted armies or with a tactical game that focuses on a particular battle.

[jimmy]

and i think it wouldnt work as your already going up against the likes of sudden strike, blitzkrieg. and others like call of duty.for want off sounding like i have been eating to many kippers[if you know what there reknowned for ] theres still plenty to do in regards to ancient/medieval.