General Sun's Tent Editorial Next Issue "What I like to see in the Next Game"

[lars573]

1.Real time campagins at most aren't crap. EAW wasn't a drag but it only had 30 territories. With 100 plus like TW it would drag. The 600 in Crusader kings really drags.

2.This reeks of way to hard to ballance to make anyone happy. Plus with the TW constraint of using units that are at most a thrid of what they would have been in a real army it features means that this would simly mean you don't train a unit but rather rent it. Bad idea, until TW Napoleon invades Russia with the 500,000 men the real Napoleon did.

3.In RTW campagin.

4.The great wall of China was until the 15th century a metaphorical wall rather than a physical one. The Mings built actual wall sections you see outside Beijing, and only outside Beijing. The rest of the wall was watch towers, forts, and fortified towns. All of which are in TW right now.

5. Bad idea given AI limitations.

6.I dislike any notion of making TW any more martial-centric than it is now.

7.A)Emperor's did concern themselfs with buildings in a city. Generals too. Bulding stay
B)TW isn't a wargame, it's a strategy game which means you need to build buildings to trian units. This should never be removed.
C)Your asking to remove the micromangament of a city and replace it with the micromanging of governors.

8.=higher system requirements

9.Nothing wrong with the lighting

10.Battle speed is fine where it is. It should not be reduced much more than it is in M2TW. Or will be back to the crappfest that STW/MTW battles were.

11.Everything CA has said about naval tells me they fear it turnng into another throne room. A bug ridden coding nightmare.

12.Rivers through cities might work but this means more HDD space for city bits.

13.Already in all TW games. WTF do you think upkeep is? However if your armies and navy started to rebel/disert if you went into the red it might be better.

14.This would require you too reduce provinces even more. So that the none hardcore TW player will actually finish a campagin. Or make it so that all sub regions surrender if the capital is taken.

[Faenaris]

While I like the idea of attrition and various other ideas (especially the "your army dies, it is practically over" situation), I am absolutely against making TW not turn-based. I really hate real-time campaigns since it happens too fast and even if there is a "snail" speed mode, I still use the pause button to give others and then fast forward the time.

The mix turn-based campaign/rts battles is the very feature that made me a loyal fan of the series. The moment that system goes full real-time would be a sad day for me.

[ProudNerd]

While I like the idea of attrition and various other ideas (especially the "your army dies, it is practically over" situation), I am absolutely against making TW not turn-based. I really hate real-time campaigns since it happens too fast and even if there is a "snail" speed mode, I still use the pause button to give others and then fast forward the time.

The mix turn-based campaign/rts battles is the very feature that made me a loyal fan of the series. The moment that system goes full real-time would be a sad day for me.

I agree. I muse over turns for up to ten minutes sometimes, especially when you have a huge empire and you need to check everything out. tactical parts of a game (IE battles) are perfect for real time but grand strategy is not. I don’t like to be rushed, which is why I rarely play things like command and conquer.

[shifty157]

Just because MTW2 looks like a really enjoyable doesnt change the fact that General_Sun is completely right on many points.

That said however CA is taking some (very tentative and cautious) steps in the right direction. The new recruitment pools system sounds like itll change gameplay up quite a bit. The castle/city system while not to my tastes is also an effort to change up the gameplay and i respect it for that fact alone. Without going into a whole long list there are some very nice changes CA has made for MTW2.

That said however CA in my opinion is being a bit overly cautious and could do alot more about adding new features and such.

[Aracnid]

This has been mentioned before but the more different you make a sequel it the bigger the gamble it is. The Total War series is a sucess, the size of the forum proves that. I have no idea how much CA have spent making this game but I am sure that it is a lot of money. When games were designed at home by three of four guys people could afford to take risks, if CA or any of the big games companies spends £10 million and makes a flop that nobody apart from a small core of dedicated gamers buy, then they are in serious trouble.
What I trying to say is it is a lot easier to gamble with £10,000 than with £10,000,000.

[Polemists]

I'll toss in my two cents while i'm at it. Firstly this will probably get me the big red bumper sticker of not a complete history dork. Don't get me wrong I love history, I like reading about battles and crusades, but hell if I can quote who the third emperor of byzantine emperor was, or how many men were lost at the battle of agincourt historically speaking, and no i don't know how a authentic mongol should look.

That all being said I am a gamer, and I realize things that sell and things that don't sell. You have some interesting points, points that in countless other games may be great, not this game though and CA won't implement them. Another said it and they were right CA has to leap out of the historical threshold. If you don't believe me look at the games. Activision is gone, if not for Sega who knows what publisher you might have leading CA. CA is a small group, but like everyone if they don't make a profit they won't make games.

Let's be honest besides CIV 4 and Total War can you name a single one historical real time risk like board game that has done well. If your going to tell me they don't exsist I can think of at least 5 that came out and did horribly.

Secondly CA is revoultionary in my view, weather you view them as such is your own opinon. We'd all have things we want to see, but if you don't think the game has taken major leaps everytime it comes out, then you may just be thinking to minute. I assure you if I give a average gamer Shogun and MTW 2 I know which one they'd rather buy. Yes because of grahpics, yes because there are more features, but also because it has taken steps. Maybe not all the steps everyone wants. Still I think they do move foward and I am a fan who will continue to buy games.

That being said I would love to see naval battles, I would love to see little minor things implemented. I'm not a big fan of real time strategy aspect in a total war game. However I would much rather them keep there pace, then the risk that CA goes out of buisness. Rome did better then MTW sales wise, MTW 2 will do better then Rome sales wise, so on and so on. I hope they do get every average gamer, I love these games and I wish everyone played them with me.

That's my spiel, it's just a opinon your welcome to trash it, construct it or compliment it.There are improvements to be made, but I personally think total war is revoultionary with every game I see. That's why i'm CA's fan.

[TheImp]

While I like the idea of attrition and various other ideas (especially the "your army dies, it is practically over" situation), I am absolutely against making TW not turn-based. I really hate real-time campaigns since it happens too fast and even if there is a "snail" speed mode, I still use the pause button to give others and then fast forward the time.

The mix turn-based campaign/rts battles is the very feature that made me a loyal fan of the series. The moment that system goes full real-time would be a sad day for me.

The same here. Absolutely against it too. I'm kind of slow in finding and deploying strategies so i don't want a campaign setting being essentially based on the number of times u can click on your mouse buttons a second.

As for waypoints, they are already in and work fine in the demo.

Still, there are some interesting ideas developped by the OP.

[LadyAnn]

4.The great wall of China was until the 15th century a metaphorical wall rather than a physical one. The Mings built actual wall sections you see outside Beijing, and only outside Beijing. The rest of the wall was watch towers, forts, and fortified towns. All of which are in TW right now.

Hmmm? *Raises eyebrow*

Anniep

[lars573]

Hmmm? *Raises eyebrow*

Anniep

Yep a physical wall all along the border or Inner Mongolia is a myth. All be it one perpetuated for tourism.

[LadyAnn]

Yep a physical wall all along the border or Inner Mongolia is a myth. All be it one perpetuated for tourism.

Revisionist, eh?

Anniep

[Tempiic]

I'd say you might be more happier playing EU / HOI than TW perhaps. Or rather having TW look more like these games.

Don't think thats possible though. Too different game engine / approach / setup in use in either game.

[Aracnid]

I have been playing a lot of HoI2 Doomsday recently and CA could learn a lot from them. The way you balance your production between Supplies (keep your armies in the field), Commercial Goods (Keep the people happy), Upgrades,Reinfocements, and finally Production (building tanks/planes/ships).
In RTW assuming you have a good enough barracks/stable/archery range you can buy anything even if you have recently purged the population. MTW2 seems to have moved forwards with its recruitment pools and the such like which is good.
However if you had a slider which you could call military spending, the more you spend the faster the recruitment pools grow (if you throw money at a problem it tends to get at least a bit better). In peacetime you can cut back because you only need a small steady trickle to keep your units up to strength. This would allow you to simulate wartime spending changes and also allow you to focus on building Cathedrals in peacetime and recruiting archers in wartime better. Also it can't be that difficult to implement as Victoria had a similar system and that came out about 10 years ago, though it was far from perfect and due to other unrelated flaws was unplayable.
The only downside is that it is a bit more complex and a bit different and thus might deter the average gamer. Despite that a change like this would be an enourmous improvment to the campaign element. I am going to buy MTW2 because I love the battles and I am going to play the campaign to build armies to fight cool battles.
But with things like EUIII coming along I am going to get my grand strategy fix elsewhere. On the other hand I am going to miss the ability fight cool battles in EUIII so I am going to be unhappy either way.

Edit: That's not to say that CA haven't got a lot right with the campaign map. I prefer the turn based system and the new characters look great (diplomats, assasins etc.). Also governors affecting the performance or cities is another great feature, and I think the Total War series pioneered generals with a command rating though I might be wrong. The whole vice and virtue syste is inspired and really adds character to the game. I don't mean to flame CA or the Total War series but nothings perfect and I think these changes would improve the game. Also the terrain in RTW and MTW2 is a lot more attractive and realisitc than in HoI2. CA has got more right than it has gotten wrong, but that doesn't mean its perfect.

[Mount Suribachi]

13.Already in all TW games. WTF do you think upkeep is? However if your armies and navy started to rebel/disert if you went into the red it might be better.

Please don't swear at me. Upkeep and Supply are not the same thing. One is a fixed cost in the game that you always have to pay no matter what. This is meant to restrict you from spamming unlimited armies by forcing you to pay out a cost that is meant to simulate wages, food, drink etc etc. And you always have to pay it, even if your army is trapped on the other side of the world, you still pay their upkeep.

Whereas in reality you would have to send their pay, food, drink, weapons, ammo, etc etc by sea and land to them. Where they would be subject to piracy, theft, breakage, spoilage, interception, blockades etc etc. The further an army is from its bases, the harder and more expensive it is to supply. And when an army is lacking in supplies it loses men to disease, death, desertion etc. Without supplies it cannot manuevre or fight as effectively. Maintaining your supply chain was of critical importance in all the time periods covered in the TW series.

Its like the old truism about "amateurs talk tactics, proffesionals talk logistics". Alexander the Great understood this. Tinned food came about after Napoleon sponsored a competition for someone to design non-perishable food for him to take on campaign. If supply (as opposed to upkeep) was not a factor in warfare, Napoleon could have marched all the way across Russia and Patton & Montgomery could have driven all the way to Berlin in August 1944.

[lars573]

Please don't swear at me. Upkeep and Supply are not the same thing. One is a fixed cost in the game that you always have to pay no matter what. This is meant to restrict you from spamming unlimited armies by forcing you to pay out a cost that is meant to simulate wages, food, drink etc etc. And you always have to pay it, even if your army is trapped on the other side of the world, you still pay their upkeep.

Whereas in reality you would have to send their pay, food, drink, weapons, ammo, etc etc by sea and land to them. Where they would be subject to piracy, theft, breakage, spoilage, interception, blockades etc etc. The further an army is from its bases, the harder and more expensive it is to supply. And when an army is lacking in supplies it loses men to disease, death, desertion etc. Without supplies it cannot manuevre or fight as effectively. Maintaining your supply chain was of critical importance in all the time periods covered in the TW series.

Its like the old truism about "amateurs talk tactics, proffesionals talk logistics". Alexander the Great understood this. Tinned food came about after Napoleon sponsored a competition for someone to design non-perishable food for him to take on campaign. If supply (as opposed to upkeep) was not a factor in warfare, Napoleon could have marched all the way across Russia and Patton & Montgomery could have driven all the way to Berlin in August 1944.

Yes they are, in TW. Supply doesn't enter into it. Your example is from WW2. Where ammo, weapons, food, water, parts, feul, and replacements had to shipped from home to the units in the field. Napoleon had to ship ammo/powder, weapons, some food, and replacements to his armies in the field. All Alexander had to ship was replacements to and orders from himself in the feild. Your supply idea has no place in TW until they go beyond the 17th century. When armies stopped foraging for everything they needed on campagin. Or make and asian TW. The Chinese armies carried tofu and rice rations with them on campagin.