Desired Features, old and new

[Servius]

I don't know if we've already had a thread like this, but I know there's not a stickied one, so without further ado, please list gameplay features you would like to see in MTW2. Suggest old favorites from the past that got nixed somewhere along the line, or ones you wish had always been there. Lets try to keep it possitive. No need for bashing here, just what you'd like to see. Short and sweet. Here are some of my desires:

A morale meter on the unit card
A fatigue meter on the unit card
A battle-map speed slidebar
A hotkey that allows you to change unit facing with one click (+ the hotkey)
Different battlefield terrain types that affect different units in different ways
Morale penalty effects for packing too many units in a small space
Morale penalty effects for assigning units too many orders in a given period of time
Morale penalty effects for taking missile fire
Moreale boosting effect when the commander is nearby (visual aura)
Defense bonuses for spear-units based on rank depth
Individual range calculations for each shooter in a missile unit
Range (and maybe damage) boosting effects when shooting downhill
Charge speed boosting effect when charging downhill (all unit types)
Allow all units to use the Wedge formation
Allow provincial governorships to be granted to any unit (title-system)
Do not deduct construction resources until the unit/building is actually under construction
Allow royal marriages to princesses to increase the liklihood that heirs will have good stats

[Cowhead418]

Some off the top of my head:

Alliances to actually mean something
Mutual protection pacts
The ability to create a multiple-faction alliance
MTW system of owning a province (either you did or you didn't) Entering another province is a declaration of war
More movement points for agents - I don't want to have to wait six years for my diplomat to reach the Scythians to ask for an alliance
Battles in the city streets with rebels
The ability to hold councils with your advisors to discuss political and military strategies
More exploitation of the terrain on the campaign map
More weather effects
Tradeable goods to have a function other than just money-making
A better use for princesses
Individual units that are more able to respond to various situations on the battlefield
The STW-style record of generals though it should not have as much impact on the command as it did in STW
When civil wars occur, the other side you don't choose to back should act as a coordinated group and like another faction, not as a split group of rebels
The awesome atmospheric battlefields of STW
More interesting sieges - more options, ability to go see it on the battlefield
No suicidal or idiotic AI generals who throw their lives away (taken from another thread)
STW-style movies! I loved those!

[Grimmy]

I would like to see a change to tactical battles. When an enemy army routs, you can "release to persue". By that I mean, in order to have a general break of formation and persue the enemy to slaughter them, you issue a "release to persue" command (button) and then give up control of your army as they go forth to slaughter.

Otherwise, the army would have to keep formation and advance in good order, rank and file.

This would add a level of tactical "deciet" and tension. Is the enemy army really breaking and running in rout? or are they baiting you into comming after them so they can rally and turn on your men as they are now out of formation and easier to take apart?

Also, I'd like to see a disciplen effect much like morale that is tested per unit during a fight. If a unit is facing an enemy unit that breaks and routs..will that unit "release to persue" without orders to do so, or even against orders not to do so?

Kinda like the saxon shield wall that was holding back successive waves of norman cavalry and foot charges that finally got baited into breaking ranks and going after the enemy they thought was routing, but then turned on them and ...

I'm thinking it was the Battle of Hastings, but not sure on the name.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

A 'Advance' order for multiple units to adance in formation. (to meet the enemy) It can be done now but it is way too fiddly and you are one mouseclick away from disaster if you get it wrong.

The speech to go on during the deployment phase. I kinda like the speeches but I never listen to them because I tire of waiting for the old codger to finish. If he could do his speech while I'm spending a few minutes placing my troops that would be so much better. Not too much to ask, I hope.

A Grognard mode With the Arcade mode rarely used by most people and it's features accesible by the ordinary options already, and with CA already aiming at the massmarket, how about a mode for us die hard wargamers? Stuff like slowing down the battles, units with combat values according to their historical effectiveness rather then for balancing purposes. Etc. etc.

[Joshwa]

I'd like to see more diplomatic options, off the top of my head

*In GA mode, it should be harder to conquer and hold enemy provinces; there should be a hell of a lot of rebellions, the support cost of troops in that province should be higher, and the previous owner should get 'guerilla' troops to harass the occupiers.
*Vassal kingdoms. If you beat another faction, you can demand they pay you money/provide you with troops. You could also take all their heirs off them as hostages. If they decide to attack after that they'd better make damn sure they win!
*A 'Royal Court' system, where your diplomats follow foreign kings around, instead of you having to hunt them down every time you want to petition.
*The ability to decide which captured units to ransom back, and which to dispose of/cripple. Im thinking of Turkish Horses archers here!
*Being able to move through another factions territory without invading. This could either be because you are so big they don't dare oppose you, or by paying them.
*The option to demand territory/money from a faction when they sue for peace.
*different kinds of alliance. Non-aggression pacts, Trade agreements etc. It would be cool if a whole bunch of factions could group together in one big trading league, for example.
*A different system for battle outcomes; If you massively outnumber the enemy, but they take, say, half of your army with them, that would count as a technical victory for you, and a moral victory for them. Troops who suffer crushing defeats 'remember' this, and will be de-moralised the next time they fight. Conversely, troops on a winning streak will have a morale bonus. 'Hit and run' attacks would also be good, with you sending a few units to harass the enemy, retreating, and it NOT counting as a defeat for you, so long as you kill more of them that they do of you.

[Dutch_guy]

Ok, here are some idea's

-would like to be able to save my better campaign battles in the form of a replay.

-I would like the options of ransoming,killing the ringleaders or mercy back, also I'd want to have the option of killing enemy prisoners at the time when the battle is still in progress ( so you can cripple your enemy even If you might lose the battle )

-a Glorious achievement mode, GA, or an improved version of it - suggestions?

-I'd like to see the historical units or Heroes come back from Medieval Total war.

-To be able to wipe out factions with assassins in the mTW style, however balance it so that it isn't as easy as in Medieval but not as impossible as in Rome.

-Larger battle maps, which have more details on it ( think different sorts of terrain etc. ) and can actually be the difference between losing or winning a battle.

-Better weather effects + the corresponding penalties or bonuses, meaning archers have a decreased effectiveness in the rain, camels get bonuses in a sand storm, decreased sight in fog ( think fog of war ).

-Supply lines, which I incidentally did see in a Rome total war trailer / screenshot.

-Make retraining harder, aka make it take as long as is necessary, so given a unit is 100 men strong it should take longer retraining if it has 20 units than that it should take if it had 90 units.

-You shouldn't be able to load a full stack in just one boat, I'd rather have the Medieval system of naval transportation than the Rome one, which says a lot.

-Make certain strategic positions a priority to defend for the AI, meaning that the AI should cover bridges or mountain passes or built castles / forts in those area's.

-An improved diplomacy system, catholics should have an easier time negotiation with fellow believers than with Orthodox or Muslim factions and Vice-versa.

-Armies should be able to cover more distance in your own province than in enemy provinces ( Stolen from another thread, Thanks )

-Rebels hunting should not take more time than fighting battles against the current enemy super power.

-Civil Wars need to return, period.

-Alliances should be there for a reason, and allies should help each other if one of the factions in that alliance ask for help, also backstabbing or cancelling an alliance at a very very bad time for your ally, should result in a loss of ...prestige or influence , loyalty or something of that kind.

-Make the AI form armies rather than 3 unit border patrol
Meaning it should form stacks rather than forming various little armies.

-AI armies should always be led by a general - that general would NOT have to be a family member.

-Bring back the feature to assign titles to generals, governors, maybe expand that feature - suggestions ?

Well thats all I could think of at the moment.

Will maybe edit this thread of post new brain waves in this thread.

[Ulysses]

WANTED:

-a MUCH MORE challenging campmap-AI, which I can edit for myself(this was the weakest point in the vanilla game, my four-year-old son and my granny could always win this game...)

-same for the battle AI, which was almost "OK" in the original game

-better control system, maybe like in RON: left mouse-choose a unit; middle mouse-choose all units of same type; right mouse-send unit to; right mouse drag-give direction for target spot; right mouse drag+wheel; change formations depth; right mouse drag+left clicks-change formations..., and a better zoom out

-better scripting language for formations, where every unittype is known correctly by the engine(in vanilla MTW the engine couldn't distinguish between artillery and missile-units or between extraheavy-inf. and rus-spears...)

-a economic, techn., diplomatic and rel. campmap-system which is worth it's name, maybe a little like in CIV, but with resources and more complex structures for different strats

-many different types of agents, but only 1-3 of each of them

-much heavier sieges, where siege-equipment is needed, and with heavy losses for the attacker

-an editor for scripting and modding almost every aspect of the game

-an improved system for character-creation, only real actions of the player should influence the general's characters, more rebellions as consequences of bad ruling

-more turns in the game, more epic character

-the devastating atmosphere of the original MTW

[Servius]

Man, having mod tools come with the game would be so cool. Ooo ooo, I just thought of something:

Factional traits (i.e. Culture). You know how your king and heirs can gain vices or virtues through their actions, but they eventually die, and maybe only some remnant of certain behaviors lives on in their heirs. Well what if each faction (basically, you) had a "culture" that developed vices and virtues over time, based on the decisions you (the player) made. These characteristics would carry on throughout the length of your campaign; they would not die with your current king. You could change them over time if you got vices you didn't like, but it should take as long to undo a vice as it took to get that vice. Now I think that would be pretty badass.

[Ulysses]

Man, having mod tools come with the game would be so cool. Ooo ooo, I just thought of something:

Factional traits (i.e. Culture).

This was something I wanted to realize in one of my mods, but I despaired on the weak campmap-AI, what makes me shutdown all my modding-projects...

You know how your king and heirs can gain vices or virtues through their actions, but they eventually die, and maybe only some remnant of certain behaviors lives on in their heirs. Well what if each faction (basically, you) had a "culture" that developed vices and virtues over time, based on the decisions you (the player) made. These characteristics would carry on throughout the length of your campaign; they would not die with your current king. You could change them over time if you got vices you didn't like, but it should take as long to undo a vice as it took to get that vice. Now I think that would be pretty badass.

Nice ideas, but I would resolve it more individually: Generals would gain military traits, while gouvernors would gain the acumen maybe piety stuff. Or you could bring totally new traits like strength , intelligence into play. I would have thousands of suggestions for this part of the game...

[DensterNY]

One definite improvement that I would like to see is in sieges... Although I wholeheartedly loved MTW the sieges were pretty bad which wasn't a problem as you fought 95% of the time in the field.

In Rome, we had much more elaborate sieges but you had to fight them all the time which proved to be a long and tedious process. One primary reason was because you'd get stuck on walls fighting enemies who are supposed to be running for their lives but still standing there fighting it out with you to the death. I've had peasants holding off heavy infantry for 5-10 minutes simply because fighting on the walls meant only a few people could engage at the same time.

[Aquitaine]

Multi-tiered titles: the ability to grant a higher title to a character with a lower title and have it replace the lower title, e.g. a Duke title replacing a Lord title. This is in addition to complementary titles like Warden of the Cinque Ports, Lord Chancellor, etc.

Also, the ability to grant titles to your heirs. It always aggrevated me in MTW that your often most-capable characters couldn't run provinces. When a king died and the previous heirs became regular lords, that was always a great day. :)

[Alexanderofmacedon]

I don't know if we've already had a thread like this, but I know there's not a stickied one, so without further ado, please list gameplay features you would like to see in MTW2. Suggest old favorites from the past that got nixed somewhere along the line, or ones you wish had always been there. Lets try to keep it possitive. No need for bashing here, just what you'd like to see. Short and sweet. Here are some of my desires:

A morale meter on the unit card
A fatigue meter on the unit card
A battle-map speed slidebar
A hotkey that allows you to change unit facing with one click (+ the hotkey)
Different battlefield terrain types that affect different units in different ways
Morale penalty effects for packing too many units in a small space
Morale penalty effects for assigning units too many orders in a given period of time
Morale penalty effects for taking missile fire
Moreale boosting effect when the commander is nearby (visual aura)
Defense bonuses for spear-units based on rank depth
Individual range calculations for each shooter in a missile unit
Range (and maybe damage) boosting effects when shooting downhill
Charge speed boosting effect when charging downhill (all unit types)
Allow all units to use the Wedge formation
Allow provincial governorships to be granted to any unit (title-system)
Do not deduct construction resources until the unit/building is actually under construction
Allow royal marriages to princesses to increase the liklihood that heirs will have good stats

Mhm...

[lar]

determine the amount of men to be trained in a unit and make it adjust the time to make them accordingly.

[IceTorque]

I would like to see the sand box style of gameplay scrapped for a more role playing type of game. i.e. One army, one commander, one era, no build ques, no micro-management and all agents dispatched/received with one click/command. Perhaps the devs that left TW to try something new could maybe try something new with a future TW game.

[econ21]

I would like to see the sand box style of gameplay scrapped for a more role playing type of game. i.e. One army, one commander, one era, no build ques, no micro-management and all agents dispatched/received with one click/command.

I would like to see the RPG elements strengthened too - I like the GA mode of MTW and the Senate missions etc, but I am not sure it requires throwing out the sandbox so completely.

Having multiple commanders would allow the RPG elements to come more into play - you have to manage personalities who have different aims and abilities.

More than one army is essential for a serious strategy game, but I would like to see more customisation of units (upgrading to later tech types) and that would probably entail fewer units in your kingdom (so you care about them more).

Jumping into the body of a general or even a unit commander in battle would be fun. Mount and Blade meets Total War anyone?

One thing that could strengthen the RPG element is more scripting - the Mongols are one element already in MTW, but there could be more. Throw more events at the player that have to be managed.

Giving enemy faction AIs more personality (a la Civ) would help too.

[Geoffrey S]

I'm thinking a direct control option for units would be nice, if the general is close enough and grouped with the moveable unit. Something like WASD could be used to move the unit forwards, move it backwards and rotate it; the larger the group being controlled and the less experience the general/group has the longer the reaction time.

One thing I definitely would love to see is the ability to make a unit walk backwards, making it possible to lure overeager enemies into an encirclement, like at Cannae; this could incur a morale penalty and cause less-experienced units to break.

[Kraxis]

I would like to see the sand box style of gameplay scrapped for a more role playing type of game. i.e. One army, one commander, one era, no build ques, no micro-management and all agents dispatched/received with one click/command. Perhaps the devs that left TW to try something new could maybe try something new with a future TW game.

If that is what you want I suggest getting Legion Arena, it is fairly cheap and the graphics aren't too great, but it is fairly long.

Personally I would prefer to keep the sandbox. I want to build my empire, I want to shape the future. I do not want to be a pawn of some obscure out-of-game force.

[IceTorque]

If that is what you want I suggest getting Legion Arena, it is fairly cheap and the graphics aren't too great, but it is fairly long.

Personally I would prefer to keep the sandbox. I want to build my empire, I want to shape the future. I do not want to be a pawn of some obscure out-of-game force.

I too like to build an empire, I just think it would be more fun and immersive to role play a character and an army. Make more realistic decisions, like who will command a second or more army, e,g, My spies have informed me of two or more armies approaching my borders. As I realistically am in command of only one army, and cannot magically transport myself all over the game world to personally command every battle/skirmish. Do I give command to a general that has a high chance of success but may turn against me ? or do I give command to a trusted general but who has a lesser chance of success ?

As for being a pawn of some obscure out-of-game force. You would have to react to in-game events. e.g. The trusted commander has lost the battle and most of his army, now you and your personal army are up shit creek without a paddle, so to speak. Or the not so trusty general has won the battle and has now decided he wants to be king. Perhaps the game would begin with the player as the prince or consul etc. After proving ones worth you would be given more important tasks and ever increasing troops to accomplish those tasks, and when you think your strong enough you could cross the Rubicon. If you are a prince, maybe you would have to fight off those who would try to claim your rightful position of king when your old man kicks the bucket.

I would prefer to be making/giving the above decisions/commands, as opposed to what building do I need to build next.

Why not command a general to head North South or what ever and fight who ever/ gaurd/garrison a region or settlement ? Why not simply command a spy/ diplomat/princess etc to go and do what you want them to ? To me the current style of build ques micro-management and manual movement of all armies/agents and being a commander/governor of every army/settlement, combined with the god like view and total control of the game world, For me it is not only getting a tad old and repetitive, it also removes any randomness/surprises.

Basically a new and more immersive way to tie together the core gameplay that is TW, and that is the 3d battles.

Could C.A. make such a game ? most certainly. Would such a game appeal to the mass market of 10 yr olds and up ? maybe, but only if the game had Orcs. Would we still have the option of playing more than one faction ? probably not. Would such a game last longer than 10 hours of gameplay ? I would hope so.

I played AOE and AOE II, but I can't even play the AOE III demo because I have been there and done that, and I have been spoiled by TW. RTW is basically the same game as STW. I feel it needs to and will evolve to another level. The above is just my idea of that next level. I like to think C.A. is already working on a whole new style of TW it is their baby after all.

Personally I can't wait to see it grow up and grow out of the sand box.