total war 4

[Didz]

The market is there? I'm sorry but I dont believe it. I dont have numbers to back me up, but my instinct tells me that the "medieval indies" for game scope might not be a great seller.

I agree.

STW got of to a good start mainly becuase people were inspired by the Samurai concept, and then built up from that initial beginning as news spread of how unique the gameplay was.

An Indies game wouldn't have either of those benefits. I suspect we TW'ers will buy it, but I doubt it would win many new converts.

The TW series arent nitch games, I concede Shogun lends credence to your presentation, but in all candeor the big sellers in PC military/strat games have always been Western Medieval, Roman, WWII, and american civil war.

Thats perfectly true, and is why I think the real market winner would be Napoleon Totalwar.

In wargaming the big four periods are WW2, ACW, Ancient and Napoleonic. Of these the only one which does not have a major presence in the PC gaiming market is Napoleonic, and yet it comes second in the pole of popularity.

A lot of companies have tried and failed to produce a good Napoleonic game but many have managed to crack part of the equation.

Diotavelli's, points are well made and care would definately have to be taken over the strengths and weaknesses of the various factions. The good news is that some games have already cracked that part of the problem. Crown and Glory for example, has a pretty good model for the ecomonic and diplomatic standing of the main factions which is largely driven by trade and the distribution of resources. If handled correctly Britain is cash rich but resource poor forcing it to concentrate on trade and winning friends through subsidies. France on the other hand is manpower heavy but short of money, at least at the start, and has to annex land in order to acquire the resourses it needs. That aspect of C&G works well, where it fails is on the campaign movement and logistic's side which ruins the credibility of the game. It also has an overbearing national morale system that denies the player control of his faction, bit like rebelling armies but on a national scale.

Naval battles could be a problem. But having said that nobody gets stressed about the inability to refight Lepanto, so why should Trafalgar be such a big deal.