What do you want?

[rajpoot]

All right, I've looked at the threads, and I see strong emotions and sentiments spilling all over, well, I thought, why not clarify things finally......I mean, ETW is coming, so who all here actually want a total history game like what EB did to RTW, and who all want a total balance game with no care for history, and who are the people who think it should go more or less hand in hand like it goes now?


Edit :
Incase I've posted this in the wrong place, please pardon me and shift it. I for one thought that its correct place will be the ETW thread.

[Bellum]

History. Some factions will be harder than others, but all the better challenge. Making weaker factions stronger and stronger factions weaker so that all factions are easy is silly.

[General_Sun]

Fun>Interative Documentary.

[Galain_Ironhide]

I think - follow history up until the point of the opening of the game, then thats when you are in the drivers seat! You are creating your very own peice of history. Thats how the games have always been and thats how IMHO they should stay.

Other wise I feel that the game would be too restrictive in the path that you would play as any nation. (eg, By history the apaches never conquered Europe or defeated the pilgrims on their home turf and if you played it by historical means you could only play to the point where you are defending your homelands and thats it! Or if you played the French, you could sweep Europe until ultimately you lose at Waterloo... Game over.)

It would be nice to play certain critical battles that were fought in real history in a Grand Campaign, but for that to happen, the game itself would be determining what you do on the world map, not you. A little too Pre-ordained for me.

Sorry, enough rambling.

[Barbarian]

I agree, but the unit and campaign balance should be made historical. If some faction has no strong points, and other one has superb economy, elite army and fleet, they shouldn't be made nearly equal. I don't care about the balance, because history wasn't balanced. If you can't surive against superpowers, you die, if you meet the best cavalry on earth, that's your problem to figure out how to beat them with your poor recruits.

Yes, and the situation should be historical only at the start, and it shold not be limited by the sript or something.
Apaches should be able to conquer the world, but it must be made so, that it is extremely hard to do for them. I wouldn't like to see how player could just take apaches and steamroll the map.

[magnum]

Yea, balance above and before all else would ruin the game in my opinion. I voted a little of both but that covers a lot of ground. One of the things I didn't like about M2TW was that it felt to balanced. There weren't dominant factions and/or units. Not saying I want fantasy units (I don't) but if a faction or unit had advantages and/or were superior, I'd like to see it represented in game to some extent. In MTW XL, I liked playing as a minor faction simply because it was so difficult to win (or sometimes even to survive - Irish)

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

I voted the middle one, because balance is necessary for battles (MP), but history is necessary to create an immersive experience. I would prefer more history than balance, but balance needs to exist.

[Rhyfelwyr]

I'm with the evil maniac on this, a mix of balance and realism is the way to go, but I'm a little biased towards realism otherwise it doesn't seem as immersive.

[Csargo]

I picked a mix of both, history and balance, it makes the most sense to me.

[Mikeus Caesar]

I picked the middle option. Majority rule is always fun.

But as for you, Caravel - i would have thought better of your choice!

[Martok]

I voted the middle one, because balance is necessary for battles (MP), but history is necessary to create an immersive experience. I would prefer more history than balance, but balance needs to exist.

What he said. ^ ^

I myself probably prefer approximately 2/3 realism and 1/3 balance. I believe a mix of the two is necessary either way, however.

[Furious Mental]

I picked the middle one, but I should point out that what that really means to me is that the game should be "balanced" in such a way that is challenging for the player even if that contradicts history. It do not take it to mean that spear-throwing tribal warriors can withstand modern artillery, although as I've said elsewhere this will not even be an issue if there are realistic systems for the proliferation of weapons technology.

[rajpoot]

I myself voted for history actually; to put it better say four parts history and a part of balance will be just fine. And that is just the point, it'll give the higher level armchair generals a greater challenge to play the main game as a weaker faction and reverse history........!! Sounds perfect.

[Mailman653]

I like the 2nd option. IMO, TW gives us the the time frame, the units, the names and it's up to the individual player to make their own game history, if they want to try to follow closely to real life history, that's still their choice and not something that is imposed.

[Caius]

3/3 history, 2/3 balance.

Its too much to ask?

[RoadKill]

For me I would like the characters to be accurate. And that actually existed in history and you could play them however you like. So therefore I voted the middle one.

[rajpoot]

I believe it is my fault that I have been unable to clear myself, I never meant that the game will be a guided one and that the player will be unable to have the freedom of choosing his own way and wars. When I said history I meant the unit types, effectiveness, faction starting points, and the number of cities and forts.

[Polemists]

All nice ideas but....


There is a simple fact. They make the game to sell. Last time they made Medieval far more accessable and it sold far better then Rome. I like history, I would like history to hold a dominant spot in the game. Still I think it will be like medieval, it will only be historical until the point they feel it gets in way of fun or new players. Supposedly Empire will be even more streamlined then Medieval was, so you are spending more time making crucial decisions, and less time micro managing.

While i'm sure some of you would love to decide the exactly sail, rutter, etc of your ship, it will bore most people. So I assume it will just be like units, some authentic names, and some units more progressive then others. However I am 100% sure some of you will get to a navy battle and go "This is way to easy, this isn't accurate, this should do this, and that never exsisted in this year." I am also 100% sure some people will think the game is way to hard.


So I assume CA will cater to both and find a middle ground. So far I am happy with the results.

[Rhyfelwyr]

While I voted the middle option, surely historical accuracy and balance can go together. Obviously, a battle between the British and the Zulu's will not be balanced, but between the 10 playable factions, they could all have well balanced positions and armies whether they are historical or not.

I do not see why the mass market would prefer "Barbarian Noble Cavalry" to a much better and authentic sounding name like "Brihentin". Of course here a line needs to be drawn, as most players would get confused when it comes to dealing with "Skuda Fat Baehexydae" and "Kataphraktoi Toxotai Klibanophoroi Agema bla bla".

And these things such as unit names do not even impact upon game balance.

Also I'm not sure mass market players would appreciate having their Dragoons slaughtered by Aztec Spearmen.

[Rodion Romanovich]

Historical accuracy is pretty balanced, and when it isn't, we're usually talking about periods of time during which certain forms of weaponry or recruitment policies were more effective than others. This just makes for a more interesting campaign game, like if you get an event message in around 1789 saying that France had a revolution and is now forming a massive conscripted army! MP can be balanced by unit costs anyway, if the units retain their historical strengths and weaknesses and sizes. I don't think there's a conflict. The only conflict is between accuracy and lack of patience and tactical skills among some players. Lower battle speeds mean you must plan more carefully and make accurate assessments about the time until you can break part of an enemy line, and perform clever pinning strategies and not commit all your reserves at once, and sometimes even fall back and regroup/rest during battle. Higher battle speeds mean you need only consider timing and amass all troops in one place and cause a chain rout before the enemy can do the same.

I hope for accuracy, as I skipped M2TW because of lack of it. I will probably still buy ETW even if it only holds minimum standards of accuracy for ground battles because the naval battles is something new and may be enjoyable for a while in any case. Though, I hope there'll be a good land battle and campaign map system too, if there is, the game will not just be good but awesome

[rajpoot]

I was thinking again, and one of the foremost things that'll need to be done for accuracy, is to increase the number of soldiers even more. I mean the medieval battles actually had far far more than 10,000 men and that is I believe the maximum number M2TW can accomodate in a battle.........Ofcourse, it might get a little chaotic for some, but can we not have one more option for unit size, like realistic, where number of men is even more than the huge option......?

[Rhyfelwyr]

Well major battles in ETW's time had 100,000+ soldiers on one side alone IIRC.

But with the graphics looking as they are I can't see the game accomodating huge army sizes.

[Polemists]

I don't think the numbers will change much. Yes they could do something along the lines of saying your ship carries more but in the end, as the other person said, only so much current graphics can do. Total War is kept to a decent graphics level so lots of people can play it.

While I don't think people would want to be slaughtered the same is true. I heard countless people complain when MTW 2 came out about how unfair the mongols were, how they had so many soliders, how their archers were so much better yada yada. Some people like historical barely surviving odds, some don't. Still more and more they want to attract the general RTS crowd which is a crowd that dosn't want alot of thinking, just a little thinking now and then. Look at how well C&C 3 sold compared to MTW 2. Don't kid yourself CA wants sales, they'll keep it historic, but if they can shift things from historic to fun they'll pick fun everytime.

[Furious Mental]

The soldier models in Medieval 2 look good. If you ask me, they should stop increasing the quality of the models and increase the number of troops.

[pevergreen]

Above post is perfect.

[Russia_CCCP]

THey should do this:

1) Input foreign languages
2) Make ALL soldiers fight. So silly seeing the front line soldiers fight to death while the rest of the unit waits until someone is dead to replace them from the back. It would be really like a TOTAL WAR if all of them fought with the enemy.

[rajpoot]

2) Make ALL soldiers fight. So silly seeing the front line soldiers fight to death while the rest of the unit waits until someone is dead to replace them from the back. It would be really like a TOTAL WAR if all of them fought with the enemy.

There actually were lines of battle.......the rear units did not rush forth cramming the front unless the front thinned...........

[Matt_Lane]

2) Make ALL soldiers fight. So silly seeing the front line soldiers fight to death while the rest of the unit waits until someone is dead to replace them from the back.

There actually were lines of battle.......the rear units did not rush forth cramming the front unless the front thinned

Quite right, this will be even more apparent if we are able to fight in column where it is more about weight of numbers than the number of muskets brought to bare.

[Ozzman1O1]

I do have a hard time playing as factions with no historical past,EX:Armenians in rome total war,

[Ferret]

I voted for history because having different factions at different difficulty is what makes the game fun, if they were all the same it would be boring. As for multiplayer all games are like this, on football games everyone picks the best teams, on FPSs everyone picks the best gun so why can't everyone have the best faction on multiplayer? An what's wrong with unbalance anyway? Everything in life is unbalanced.